Teddy Lupin and the Daedalus Maze
by FernWithy
Summary: During Teddy's fifth year, he clashes seriously with Harry for the first time, when a dangerous divination device shows him things he wasn't man't to see. This is an older story, just being posted to FFN for the first time. Some of it existed before the current family trees. Cover by Papillon82. Sequel to Teddy Lupin and the Hunter's Moon.
1. A Professorial Party

**Chapter 1:**

 **A Professorial Party**

The rain had been coming down hard for four days, and London had taken on the soggy, dispirited look of a wet newspaper, with gray skies leaking ink out over the grass and streets and pavements, turning them to dark mud. Birds flapped about with their feathers bedraggled and grimy, ill-tempered wet stray cats foraged in soaking garbage piles for food, and shut-in children - Muggle and magical - were beginning to make nuisances of themselves as their parents searched helplessly for something to keep them entertained.

No part of the city was soggier than the run-down, seedy square at Grimmauld Place, and children and parents had taken to avoiding one another, the parents beginning to have anxious thoughts about cabin fever. At Number Eleven, half a dozen twelve-year-old girls had commandeered the basement, where they'd set up a Ouija Board. The girl who lived in the house - one Isabel Nelson - had long insisted that the neighborhood was haunted, particularly the strange house next door, and the rainy day seemed a good opportunity to explore the claim. An old drunk had once told Isabel that Number Twelve had just appeared from nowhere one day thirteen years ago, but of course everyone else said that was nonsense - Number Twelve had _always_ been there, where it belonged. Houses did not simply appear and disappear, and they had memories of it being continuously inhabited by the odd Mr. Potter, and his family before him, for as long as anyone could recall. What the Potters did was anyone's guess, but people seemed queerly uninterested in the question.

At Number Thirteen, toddlers were quite literally trying to climb the walls. Their father ground his teeth and tried not to lose his temper at the third tale about hearing a lion roaring next door. It wouldn't do to lose one's temper in quarters this close. He turned on the television and put in a video about cartoon lions fighting on the savanna, and it served as a temporary mollification.

Inside Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, there was far too much magic going on for such a simple diversion. The Potter children - James, Al, and Lily - and their cousins, Rosie and Hugo Weasley, were annoyed by the weather, and by their exclusion from the goings on among the grown-ups. Their grandmother was doing her best to keep them distracted by Conjuring magical lions and promising that they would all have a very lovely time together tonight, but to no avail. Five children between the ages of five and eight fed one another's restlessness quite effectively. Eight-year-old James was particularly outraged that someone who was no more a grown-up than he was would be with the grown-ups tonight, while he himself was being left behind. The horrible unfairness of the situation had resulted in frequent runs up the stairs to a bedroom where a fifteen-year-old boy paced nervously among piles of discarded clothes.

The door opened with a bang - again - and James stormed in. "Couldn't you ask them to let me come?" he asked with no preliminaries. "I'd do everything you say, Teddy!"

Teddy Lupin stopped pacing. His hair, currently a bilious shade of green, stood up straight and formed itself into a high fan, then fell down over his ears and turned black. He was wearing blue jeans and an old white vest. A gold ring on a heavy gold chain swung gently over his spreading chest. His body, used to his quick shifts in shape, seemed to be impatient with the slower shifts brought about by nature, and his latest growth spurt had left him all sharp elbows and knees on his long, thin limbs. Without magical help, all of his trousers were too short for him. All summer, he'd lived in shorts, but shorts wouldn't do tonight. He'd just have to shrink his legs. That was all there was to it. They couldn't stop him morphing, even if they tried to make a rule about it.

" _Teddy_!" James said, interrupting him.

Teddy shook his head. "Sorry, James," he said. "It's for grown-ups."

"You're not a grown-up. You're just fifteen!"

"Yes, but Professor Longbottom invited me anyway. I'm _nearly_ grown."

"I'll be nearly grown in just seven years, then!"

Teddy tried another approach. "I don't think your Mum wants you at this sort of party..."

"Mummy's _going_ to it. She and Aunt Hermione and Luna and Professor McGonagall all said that it couldn't just be for the boys, and they were going because they're Neville's friends. I'm Neville's friend. Shouldn't I go?"

"Well, I'm sure she thinks you'd be bored. It'll probably be very boring. You'll have more fun here with Granny Molly and Granddad Arthur and the cousins."

"If it's boring then why must you go? You could stay and play with us. I made up a story about Checkmate and Martian!" He smiled brightly. "They go to Neville's wedding, and they have to stop pirates from stealing the presents."

"James, no," Teddy said, then sighed at James's crestfallen expression. "Look, you can be in charge of Checkmate tonight." He scooped his cat off the floor (she'd been chasing his socks as he tossed each pair away) and handed her to James. "Take her on an adventure. Maybe Kreacher will let you explore his cupboard for mice, if you ask him nicely."

James pouted over Checkmate's head. "Why do you have so many clothes out?"

Teddy wasn't about to tell him that it was because he'd been trying and discarding them for two hours - just like he'd done before his first date - because he wanted something that didn't look childish, but also didn't look like he was trying too hard to look like an adult, and he wasn't having any luck. So he just said, "I don't know."

"What's going to happen at the party?"

"I don't know."

"Why do they call it a stag party? Is Dad going to make his Patronus? My granddad was a stag when he was an Animagus."

"I'm not sure, probably not, and I knew that; they called him Prongs." Teddy went back to searching through his clothes. Donzo's tour tee shirt was out. Lee Jordan liked his music, but no one else listened to it, and they all thought he was an act for kids. There was a leather jacket that had belonged to Teddy's grandfather, Ted Tonks, and Teddy rather liked it, but he thought it would look like he was trying to imitate someone. Granny had bought him some dress robes, but it wasn't really a dress robe sort of party, at least according to Uncle Harry. Other than the new robes he'd just bought for school - much too fussy for a stag party - his robes were ill-fitting and worn out. He'd put one on earlier and thought he looked like he was copying a picture of his father... and not from any of the rare times Dad had been able to make ends meet. All he needed were patches on the patches, and he thought he could pass. Which was altogether a bad idea when he was going to be surrounded by Dad's friends and students, who already tended to make a great fuss about how much Teddy looked like him. He frowned at the mess, then looked at James, who was watching with a puzzled sort of expression. "Hey, James, why don't you tell me the Checkmate story. I bet she'd like to hear it, too."

James brightened immediately and sat down on the camp bed where Teddy had slept last night. Checkmate squirmed, but didn't force James to let her go, and started purring when he got his knuckles under her chin and began scratching. "Right, so Checkmate and Martian were both here one day, when an owl came - "

"And they thought, 'lunch!'" Teddy said.

James made an attempt at a rude gesture he'd seen Teddy's friends make, but used entirely the wrong fingers. "It was a special owl and it told them that they couldn't eat it, because it had an invitation for them, and the invitation said that they must go to the wedding for Professor Neville Longbottom and Hannah Abbott, who wasn't a professor at all, just a lady he liked. And there were going to be presents everywhere..."

Teddy let James's voice wash over him. It was the same kind of nonsense story James always made up. Checkmate had become an expert in karate, and had a human friend named Julia. Martian had Uncle Harry's Invisibility Cloak, which James had decided long ago was really the special invisibility cloak from the old fairy tale about the three brothers. (Uncle Harry gave him a quizzical look the first time he heard this - he always seemed surprised by James's imagination - and said, "Well, James, I suppose you never know, do you?") Checkmate, Martian, and Julia all hid under the Cloak to spy on pirates and see if they meant to steal the presents. James was just getting to the part where the pirates had laser guns and the cats had to learn flame freezing spells when Uncle Harry leaned in the door and said, "Teddy, it's just about time to go." He looked at the pile of clothes. "I'm never Summoning your trunk for you again. Just close your eyes and grab something."

Feeling quite stupid being caught at this, Teddy closed his eyes and plunged his hand into the nearest pile. He came up with a clean white tee shirt that he'd already passed over a few times, thinking it would look like underwear, or that Neville would think he was treating it like some party in the Hufflepuff Common Room with his classmates. He pulled off his vest then put it on.

"That's fine," Uncle Harry said.

"I have to shrink my legs," Teddy told him. "My jeans - "

Uncle Harry flicked his wand, and the jeans grew two inches, covering the gap that showed his bony ankle. "Anything else that needs adjusting?"

Teddy looked at himself. He was in nearly the same clothes he'd started with this morning, though the new white tee shirt was cleaner than the old one. He shrugged.

Uncle Harry rolled his eyes. "I'll take that as Fifteen for 'no.' You know, there's no one there you haven't actually known since I was dragging you around in a giant sun hat and dark glasses."

Teddy felt his face go red. "Uncle Harry!"

He grinned. "I think I still have that hat around, thought I'd save it for your children, in case they turn out to be Metamorphmagi. I could Summon it for you..."

"No, thank you."

"Come on, we have to go. Lee and George have something planned. Wouldn't want to miss it."

"Uncle George has a _plan_?" James said, standing up. "Please let me see! I want to see Uncle George's joke!"

"Not this time," Uncle Harry said. He leaned over and kissed James's head. "Your grandmother's in charge. You be good and make sure that the littler children don't give her too much trouble, all right?"

"All right," James said, kicking absently at Teddy's discarded vest. "But Lily never does what I say."

"I can sympathize," Uncle Harry said, and herded both boys out of the room. At the bottom of the first flight of stairs, he shooed James off into the front room, where the others were trying to learn a song from Molly. Once James was securely on the floor between Al and Rosie, Uncle Harry shook his head and led Teddy downstairs. The fire was already going, and Ron, Hermione, and Aunt Ginny were waiting for them. Ron was dressed exactly as Teddy was, and the women were wearing tennis shoes and short-style robes.

Aunt Ginny was smiling brightly. "I'm going to dance with everyone, Harry, and you'd best not say anything about it, or you'll find yourself crawling with bats."

"As long as I can avoid dancing, I'm fine with the arrangement."

Aunt Ginny laughed and kissed him.

Ron shook his head and looked at the ceiling. "Are we going or not?"

Hermione answered by taking the jar of Floo powder from him and throwing a generous handful into the fire. "The Hog's Head!" she called, then gave the jar to Teddy, stepped into the green flames, and disappeared.

Teddy took a deep breath, grabbed the sparkling powder and tossed it into the fire. "The Hog's Head!" he said, then stepped into the placeless space of the network, and hurtled off toward an alien world.

It was impossible to fall out of the fireplace at the Hog's Head when Teddy got there; the floor in front of it was far too crowded. He had a brief glimpse of Uncle Harry's friend Seamus, who'd been doing more of the work at the bar since Aberforth Dumbledore had "started getting on in years," and one of Luna Scamander standing on a table and examining something she'd apparently spotted in a corner of the ceiling, then he tripped and landed against Hermione's back, and was solidly thumped away by Ron's arrival. Uncle Harry came next, looking exasperatedly over his shoulder, and then Aunt Ginny came. She turned while the flames were still green and said, "James, I _mean_ it! Tell Nana she can use any means necessary!" She shook ash out of her hair, then reached up and waved over the crowd.

"NEVILLE!"

A knot of people broke up, and from the midst of it, Professor Longbottom emerged. His hair was tousled and his pleasant, round face was red. Teddy guessed he'd been at some mead. "Ginny!" he said. "Welcome!"

He came over, and Aunt Ginny stood on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek. "I'd say congratulations, but quite honestly, Hannah's the one to be congratulated on the good catch. So I'll settle for happy birthday and you will _love_ being married. Promise. Though please do Hannah a favor and learn to dance."

Professor Longbottom shook his head and held a hand out to Uncle Harry. "You still haven't learned to dance? Honestly, Harry, saving the world isn't the end of your travails. Hasn't anyone told you that yet?"

Hermione laughed, and a moment later, they were all giving each other hugs. Professor Longbottom turned to Teddy, and held out his hand to be shaken. "Teddy, I trust that nothing that happens here will get around the school."

Teddy tried a smile; it seemed to fit. "If it does, it won't be from me."

"Good man. Lee and George are over by the fire with Professor McGonagall. I'd watch out. They've got cards."

Ron snorted. "Teddy's already cleaned George out twice this summer. I think it's George you'd best be warning."

The adults laughed, and veered off into a conversation about betting at Hogwarts, and Teddy found himself forgotten. He wandered off into the crowd.

"Teddy Lupin!" he heard, and was slapped on the shoulder by Seamus's much-younger wife, a girl called Nancy who was weaving through the crowd with a tray held up over her head. She was always waiting tables when Teddy came here during Hogsmeade weekends, and had been particularly fond of Laura Chapman, who had come with him twice last year. "You're a butterbeer man, aren't you? I'll get you a bottle."

Teddy didn't bother to argue, though he thought he was outgrowing butterbeer, and had been trying to develop a taste for the mulled mead that Hagrid sometimes brought to Granny's. He just nodded at her retreating back and went on.

At the bar, something exploded, and a girl made of golden fireworks began to shimmy and shake her way among the glasses. It was hard to tell through the glittering medium, but Teddy thought she looked naked. She danced over the heads of several people and landed on Professor Longbottom's head, where she twirled twice then burst into a shower of whistling sparks.

"Here, help me down."

Teddy looked up. He'd reached the table where Luna was standing, and she was holding out her hand. He took it and eased her down. "What's up there?"

"Oh, I thought it might be a Highland High-leg, but it turned out to just be a garden variety spider. I decided to leave it alone. It seems happy." She glanced around. "My husband was here somewhere. I'd guess he's disappeared off with Hagrid. They're getting Dapple settled."

"Dapple?"

"The baby hippogriff. One of the litter in France, the only male. We've brought him to live with Buckbeak." She blinked slowly, and there seemed to be a lecture on hippogriff fathering in the offing, but then she shook her head and said, "It seemed a good idea."

"Oi, Teddy!"

Teddy looked up. George Weasley was sitting by a smaller fireplace, waving over a hand of cards. Lee Jordan was beside him, giving a rather shark-like smile. Professor McGonagall, imperturbable as ever, looked up over the top of her glasses.

Teddy looked at Luna. "I should give them a chance to win some gold back from me."

She gave him a vague sort of smile and wandered off toward a knot of people near the window. Teddy recognized Cho Chang and her husband, a Muggle Healer named Daniel Morse. Daniel had known Mum and Dad during the war, and he gave Teddy a friendly sort of wave, but was apparently involved in a debate of some kind with Slughorn, who was holding court with former members of the Slug Club. Teddy ducked into the crowd before old Sluggy saw him - he'd spent quite enough time with the Potions master last year, learning to brew Wolfsbane Potion for little Neil Overby, a werewolf who'd be starting at Hogwarts in September. There would be more lessons next week, and Teddy thought that would be quite enough of Slughorn over the summer.

He emerged at the table where Lee, George, and McGonagall were sitting, and gratefully took the chair that Lee kicked out for him.

"What kept you?" George asked.

"I don't know."

"I'm surprised James didn't tag along."

Teddy smiled. "He tried. What's the game?"

"London Lowball. We haven't got to that yet, but I'm sure you'll pick it up."

"That's not particularly fair," Professor McGonagall said.

"Don't worry," Teddy assured her. "I've been keeping up with my independent reading. Just in case."

Lee laughed, and dealt Teddy in.

McGonagall studied her cards primly while Teddy arranged his hand, and said, "Your... independent reading. I don't suppose you've had a chance to review those books I sent you?" She raised an eyebrow, and Teddy caught the hidden wink.

"Dead boring," he said. "Can't imagine what you think I'm going to do with them."

"I expect you to do nothing at all. You're not nearly old enough to study the Animagus transformation in anything more than a theoretical manner. I know you'd never consider actual practice." She placed her bet and it to George.

Teddy settled in - Lee and George had been teaching him cards for two summers. They'd also tried to teach him to smoke a pipe, but he'd got so sick that they'd given that up entirely. The trick was to make other conversation, so they wouldn't notice what you really thought of your hand. "So," he said, "I've only met Hannah once or twice. What's she like?"

"Nervous," McGonagall said. "I don't envy her bridesmaids. I expect flamingos at the wedding."

"They're on the cake," Lee told her. "Some sort of joke. Susan MacMillan set it up. Said Hannah could use a laugh. Pansy's horrified, of course."

"Pansy!" George made a face. "Not Parkinson! What's she doing nosing around Hannah's cake?"

"Finch-Fletchley," Lee said. "You can't possibly have missed _that_ wedding. She's been going on about how she's seen the light about Muggle-borns. Probably reflects nicely off all that gold in Justin's vault."

Both names were vaguely familiar to Teddy, but he didn't know enough to comment. "Why flamingos?" he asked.

"Her O.W.L.s," George said. "Quite famous, really. She got nervous, and a whole flock of them showed up. Wonder what Lupin will Conjure for us this year." He grinned wickedly.

"I think he'll just freeze up," Lee opined. "We know he always cracks under pressure."

"Scared, Teddy? The O.W.L.s are vicious, you know. The rest of your life depends on them. They - "

"Mr. Weasley!" McGonagall scolded. "Really!"

Lee leaned forward. "She doesn't want you to be too nervous. Nerves could make you fail, and you'll never amount to anything."

Teddy rolled his eyes and said, "What's your bet, Jordan?"

George roared laughter.

Teddy settled in comfortably. He supposed some of the others might look at him oddly, but here, at least, he was just one of them - a holder of the Marauder's Map, a Purveyor of Aids to Magical Mischief Makers. Lee and George had treated him as part of the circle since he'd shown them all of the tricks he'd discovered in it, and he was glad. It wasn't precisely that they treated him as an adult - George found plenty of opportunities to harp on Teddy's youth - but that they treated him as an equal. Teddy's age was no more or less a point of conversation than Lee's career or George's joke shop. Being bound to the Map made generations seem less important.

Or so Teddy thought.

George examined his cards. "Reckon I'm going to need to sell the shop if I keep this up," he said wistfully, and Teddy guessed he was trying to drive the bet up. "Know of any buyers?"

"Well, perhaps Professor Slughorn will be in the market," McGonagall said, and tossed a few coins into the pile. "I imagine he'll grow bored rather quickly."

"Bored?" Teddy asked. "Why would he suddenly get bored?"

"He hasn't told you? I thought he would, with all of those Wolfsbane lessons. I assumed that was why he was training you. Professor Slughorn is retiring this year."

"Retiring?" Teddy repeated. "This is Professor Slughorn's last year?"

Professor McGonagall studied her cards. "As I understand it, his papers have already been filed. Professor Sprout is looking for a new Potions master for September."

"But the Wolfsbane... I couldn't... Well, not alone. I've been brewing it for Père Alderman this summer, but Professor Slughorn always watches and..." He shook his head. "Never mind. I'm sure the new Potions master will be able to brew it, if I can. I haven't even got an O.W.L. Professor Sprout will be looking for someone who can do it."

"I should hope so," Professor McGonagall said. "As unless you plan to become a teacher yourself - do you?"

Teddy shook his head. "No. I don't want to be a teacher."

"Then you won't be available for Neil's entire education, let alone for Celia Dean's. She's a year behind him."

Teddy shook his head, feeling foolish for the moment's scare. Of _course_ they weren't going to leave the care of a pair of werewolves solely on his shoulders. He was only doing penance for the killing of Fenrir Greyback. They wouldn't risk Neil and Celia just for Teddy Lupin's need to atone. "Right. So, who's it going to be?"

Lee made a face. "Best watch out, Teddy. Neville may hear that you only came to his party to get Hogwarts gossip, and I'm told he's not one to make angry."

"He's got a point," George said. "We should switch to Hogsmeade gossip. I heard a rumor that the family running Weasleys' Zonks is going to grow."

Lee - whose wife, Verity, managed the Hogsmeade branch of Weasleys' - smiled broadly. "Could be I've heard something of that nature."

"That's wonderful news!" Professor McGonagall said. "And I raise you two Knuts."

The game was interrupted a few minutes later by the arrival of several female ghosts, led by a woman named Rosmerta, who did a bit of provocative shimmering, most of which Teddy missed because he was at the wrong angle. (He rather supposed that he'd been positioned her for exactly that reason, and guessed that when he left - and probably some of the stricter old teachers left - things would get a bit wilder. He found himself somewhat disappointed by this.) When they left, food appeared on the tables, along with a good deal more mead as Hagrid came back from his hut, Luna's husband in tow, carrying a large barrel between them. Teddy went to sit with Uncle Harry's family, which had gathered around Neville. He only half filled his glass (Uncle Harry was watching him narrowly, but not actually forbidding it), then tucked in to a hearty meal. Teddy thought he recognized the cooking of the Hogwarts elves, but he wasn't entirely certain until Hermione asked Neville to send her thanks to Winky, the elf who ran the kitchen with a small iron fist.

Teddy had grown up with Uncle Harry and his friends around, but there was still something strange about sitting with them casually, an equal, listening to them swap Hogwarts tales of the sort that never seemed to make the official biographies. He heard a great deal about Professor Longbottom's toad, Trevor, to whom a toast was made. There was ribbing over what had apparently once been a notoriously bad memory, though Teddy had never personally observed Professor Longbottom being forgetful. Aunt Ginny reminded Uncle Harry and Ron that "Neville managed to ask two girls to the Yule Ball - surviving a rejection, I should point out - while the pair of you were still dallying about and daring one another."

"Yes," Professor Longbottom said, "but it was Harry and Ron who ended up with the two girls I asked!" He grinned. "Of course, I think we could all take advice from Lupin, here. I think he's made it through half his year. Are you going for the other half this year, Teddy?"

Teddy choked on his mead. "Er... no. I've, er... well, only Laura and Lizzie, in my year. Ruthless was older. And - _what?_ "

The adults were all laughing, like Teddy had done some particularly clever trick, and Teddy frowned, mildly irritated. George and Lee tweaked him about his girlfriends now and then (George was particularly amused by Ruthless, who was a Gryffindor Beater), but it was the same way they tweaked one another about things. And of course, his friends at school all gave him trouble about it, but that was only to be expected. This was different. They just seemed to find it funny that little Teddy Lupin had had girlfriends. Ha-ha. He wondered why they bothered inviting him as an adult. They didn't -

Aunt Ginny poked him in the side. "Don't sulk. You'll never make it through the rest if you start sulking. Just ask Ron. He knows."

"I liked you better when you respected me properly," Ron said.

"Yes, it must have been a real golden year for you, before I learned to talk."

Ron drew his wand, and a moment later Aunt Ginny's mouth was locked shut. Undeterred, Aunt Ginny raised her own wand.

"Bat bogey!" Professor Longbottom cried gleefully. "Haven't seen the old bat bogey for ages, Gin."

Aunt Ginny tapped the lock on her mouth and it disappeared. "Sorry, Ron," she said, "it's Neville's party. Must respect the groom." Bats started to pour out of Ron's nose, scrabbling over his face as he laughed.

"What on _earth_...?"

Teddy looked behind him and saw Daniel Morse, his mouth curled in a half-smile, his head shaking slowly in disbelief.

Cho came up beside him, smiling prettily. "It's a specialty of Ginny's," she told him. "Quite famous in its time."

"Very... interesting," Daniel said.

Cho looked awkward for a minute - Teddy supposed she knew she'd just walked into the end of an inside joke - then turned to Professor Longbottom. "Neville, I was so happy to get an invitation. Best of luck."

"You're not leaving already, are you?"

"I am. Daniel's got an early morning, and well... I have some preparations to make."

"Preparations?" Uncle Harry asked.

She gave a nervous smile. "Well... Professor Slughorn has asked me to take the Potions post. Just for a few months, mind, to give Professor Sprout time to find someone better suited, but he thinks I'm capable enough. I'm going to have to learn a few Charms to make sure my husband can get in and out without my help!"

Daniel took this with great grace, though Teddy thought it might be a tad insulting to him. He just put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed. "Oh, but I can't imagine you finding a way to Charm me more than you already do, darling."

Cho's smile widened. "The lovely thing is, it even works when he's being sarcastic. Remember that, Neville. And whatever you do, don't take advice from these two." She pointed to Uncle Harry and Ron.

"Never have," Professor Longbottom said. "Never will. Will you both be at the wedding?"

"I can't," Daniel told him. "I wish I could, but I'm afraid I'm on duty. Bad luck."

"I'm sorry to hear that. Cho?"

"I'll be there with bells on," she said, and little golden bells appeared at the ends of her fingers. She jiggled them in a cheerful wave, then led Daniel out through the crowd.

Teddy realized just as the night swallowed her outside that he hadn't asked her whether or not she could brew the Wolfsbane Potion.

Dinner finally ended, and pudding came and went. Lee and George joined them as the crowd thinned out, and the talk faded into the evening. Teddy was happy to listen. Finally, Seamus came over to sit down, and beside him was a very thin black man who waved awkwardly at Teddy. Dean Thomas - the fifth member of Uncle Harry's dormitory. Teddy's father had died to save his life, and he and Teddy had never quite known what to do with one another.

Aunt Ginny looked between them, then suddenly yawned. "Oh, dear," she said. "Mum'll have my hide if we don't get back on time. I'm sure James has driven her quite mad by now. I gave her permission to use Unforgivables if she needs to, but she seems to think it's a bad idea to do that to the son of the Aurors' Department head. Not sure why, really." She turned to Teddy. "I don't mean to drag you away before you have another chance to relieve George of some gold, but I did promise your Granny that we wouldn't leave you here alone with this lot. Bad influences, you know."

There was a round of goodbyes, and then Teddy found himself in front of the fire again. He looked over his shoulder. Dean was still sitting at Professor Longbottom's table, and when he noticed Teddy looking, he glanced quickly away.

Then Teddy was nudged forward, and the flames went green. He spilled out of the fireplace at Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place to find himself face to face with James, who was waiting for him whilst standing on his head in his pajamas. Just before the flames turned green on this end, Molly came down, her jaw clenched, and James ducked behind Teddy for protection.

Teddy rolled his eyes, then picked James up - he was getting too big for it, but it was still possible - and carried him up to the room they were sharing, dumping him onto the bed like a sack of rubbish, which made him giggle, like always, and Teddy was very glad that some things never changed.


	2. Love and War

**Chapter 2:**

 **Love and War**

Teddy was the only Hogwarts student invited to Professor Longbottom's stag party, but the whole of Gryffindor House was invited to the wedding. Several of Teddy's other friends had found their way in when Hannah chose The Willow - a restaurant run by the parents of Teddy's friend Tinny Gudgeon - for the reception, and they volunteered to serve.

For most of them, the wedding wasn't a cause for any great nervousness. Unlike the party, Teddy felt that he had this scenario reasonably well figured-out, and most of his mates thought of it as something to do for a day, an interesting curiosity. Donzo McCormack was debating whether or not to bring a girl, but had been talked down from that ledge by Maurice Burke, who reminded him that Professor Longbottom was a hero, and all of his adult friends were war heroes, meaning the gossip columnists would be about. Once it was agreed upon that it would be a dateless event, they all relaxed.

Except for Victoire Weasley.

"How's this one?" she asked, running down to Granny's basement in the third dress of the day. She'd brought her suitcase for a simple game of Muggles and Minions because she hadn't made this decision three days before the wedding (Teddy felt considerably better about his own indecision only a few days before; at least he hadn't dithered for _days_ ). Donzo gave her an overly appreciative glance, and even Frankie flicked his eyes over her. Maurice Burke rolled his eyes, and Roger Young gave her a leering sort of wink, which she didn't even notice.

"Do you think it looks too casual?" she went on. "Should I wear dress robes? Ruth, what are you wearing?"

Ruthless Scrimgeour, Teddy's usually-ex girlfriend and constant best friend in Gryffindor looked at her blankly. "I don't know. There's some horrible thing with lace in my wardrobe. Mum's determined that I'll wear it. Are you going to try to con the landlord into letting you stay even though you're out of gold, or do you want to make a break for it and try another place?"

Victoire bit her lip. "I don't know. Try to con the landlord, I suppose. What about your hair? How are you doing your hair?"

"No idea. What's your charm stat again?"

"Seventeen." Victoire looked at her dress and shook her head. "Oh, no, this one's terrible. I look like china doll."

Granny appeared at the top of the cellar stairs with a tray of butterbeers floating ahead of her. "You'll look lovely in anything you wear, dear," she said.

"Oh, but I want to wear the right thing! Isn't it wonderful that they're getting married? I want everything to be just right. It's very romantic! Don't you think so, Ruth?"

Ruthless blushed and shook her head. "Isn't Tinny coming? Or even Bernice? Bernice hasn't played in ages. We should call her. Just get some other girl here for her to talk to."

Victoire gave an exasperated frown. "Fine!"

Granny sighed. "Victoire, would you like me to Summon a mirror down here so you can work on your hair without running up and down from the game?"

Victoire smiled and nodded.

Teddy supposed that would have been the end of it, but Victoire was determined to make Ruthless her friend and wasn't very skilled at the task, despite three years of practice. Teddy had never been able to make out just why Ruthless disliked Victoire, or why Victoire was so determined to overcome it, and he wished they'd just stop provoking one another.

As they played their way through a listless game, Victoire slowly moved from asking Ruthless what she meant to do with her hair, to making timid suggestions, to finally giving explicit directions, like "You really must use Sleek-Easy for special occasions," and "Oh, your hair is so lovely, if you would just pin it up a bit, just over the ears..."

After the sixth such directive, Ruthless slammed her dice down on the table and stormed up the stairs. Teddy heard her voice, but couldn't tell what she was saying. Her tone with Granny seemed perfectly polite. Then she stormed back down with a pair of scissors in her hand. She grabbed her thick, unruly red hair into a pony tail and hacked it off at the base, causing the rest to puff out like the head of a dandelion.

"There," she said, leaning toward Victoire aggressively. "Problem solved, don't you think?"

Victoire put her hand over her mouth. "Oh, your poor hair! Oh, Ruth, I'm sorry! But you could still do something cute with it, I'm sure..."

Ruthless put her hands over her face and shook her head hopelessly.

To Teddy's utter confusion, on the day of the wedding Ruthless actually went to Victoire as soon as she arrived at the church, for help getting her hair in order ("Mum got it down to my shoulders and she _had_ pins in it, but they've fallen out, and I'm stuck"). Victoire happily went away with her, and they disappeared with Fleur for a few minutes. When Ruthless came out, she looked deeply uncomfortable, and kept patting at a sort of bun that Fleur and Victoire had evidently done for her. Teddy thought she looked beautiful, and for once, other people seemed to be turning to look at her as well, which made her uncharacteristically shy. She slipped into the middle of the group of boys, effectively hiding herself behind Donzo, who was the tallest. Ron, who was acting as an usher (Uncle Harry was Professor Longbottom's best man), led them to a group of seats and told them to behave themselves, or he wouldn't seat Hannah's pretty cousins from Finland anywhere near them.

A harpist took a seat at the front of the church, and the wedding began. Teddy had been to a few, and this one seemed rather typical. He had Mum's memory of her own wedding - a quick affair in a dingy Ministry office, organized with less than two hours to spare - and a flare of unreasonable anger burned at him. Mum had been perfectly happy; he'd felt that in the memory. But she'd earned something like this, and ought to have had it, with everyone she'd ever been fond of right there with her.

He felt something warm on his shoulder and looked back to find Victoire, who was smiling brightly enough to light several London neighborhoods. "It's wonderful!" she mouthed as fireworks went off above the heads of the newly married couple, who were snogging quite un-self-consciously in front of everyone. They turned together, Neville and Hannah Longbottom, now and forever, and Teddy decided that he agreed with Victoire. It really was wonderful. Though he decided it might be wiser not to share that observation with his mates, who were all expressing varying degrees of boredom, except for Maurice Burke, whose expression was utterly unreadable.

As the bride and groom made their stately way back up the aisle together, Teddy saw Tinny's parents spring into action. They carried a flowered arch to the end of the aisle, and made a great show of Charming it. They finished just as the Longbottoms reached them, and bowed deeply.

The Longbottoms stepped through the arch and disappeared.

As soon as they were gone, the Gudgeons placed several more arches, less ornate than the first, and guests began to go through them, disappearing as they went. Teddy's group, which had been near the front of the church, was among the last to go, and by the time they got through to the other side - the Gudgeons' restaurant - the reception was already underway.

The bride and groom sat at a table placed at the head of the room, like the Hogwarts High table, and several small tables were scattered around. Hannah had obviously thought out the guest tables carefully, and made a large table for Teddy and his friends, somewhere near the back, where they could keep to themselves - and those who'd volunteered to help could slip out unnoticed - even though their families were in attendance (Granny and her gentleman friend, Ellsworth Wintringham, were seated near Hannah's aunts and uncles, and they all seemed to know one another from Hogwarts). The dance floor was at the far end of the room from the high table, and James had already got Aunt Ginny out there. They were dancing energetically, if not expertly. Al and Lily were trying a clumsy box step, though the music wasn't even vaguely waltz-like. Uncle Harry and Ron were taking the mickey out of Professor Longbottom about something Teddy couldn't hear, and Hannah's Hufflepuff friends were gathered around her, telling her how lovely she was. On the fringes of that group, a pretty, dark-haired woman about Uncle Harry's age was hovering near a man with curly blond hair. She turned suddenly, an avid expression on her face, and Teddy recognized her just a moment too late to avoid her sudden, determined advance.

She reached the table and held out her hand. "Teddy Lupin!" she said. "Why, I don't believe we've been properly introduced. My name is Pansy Finch-Fletchley. Your father was my very favorite teacher. Are you planning to teach? What grand plans do you have? It's your O.W.L. year, isn't it?"

Without asking, she sat down in a place with a card that read "Roger Young," and blinked at him expectantly.

"I'm not going to be a teacher," Teddy said reflexively, scrambling to find mind-space for a conversation with a woman he knew had once led choruses of a song making fun of Ron, had tormented Hermione, and had gone out with a Death Eater - or a future Death Eater, anyway - for most of her time at Hogwarts. On the other hand, she _had_ continued writing friendly enough letters to Dad after his illness had become public knowledge, and Teddy supposed that ought to count for something. He fumbled for an answer. "I, er... well, I just don't want to... I mean, I'm not much of a teacher."

"Oh." She seemed a little unsure of what to say to this, which was the normal reaction of former students of Dad's when Teddy let slip that he didn't intend to become the second coming of Professor Lupin. He had no special reason for this. He actually _could_ teach, and fairly well, and he enjoyed it. But the thought of taking Dad's job made him queasy, so he'd rejected the notion early on. He felt the same about taking Mum's job, so he braced himself for the next, inevitable words from Pansy: "Oh, then you must be thinking of being an Auror!"

Teddy shook his head. "I don't know. Really. I don't want to be an Auror, either."

"Oh, but you really must start thinking about these things! You'll need to decide which N.E.W.T.s to take."

"I, er..."

To his great relief, Donzo pulled out a chair on Pansy's other side and said, "Actually, I'm starting a band after school, and Teddy's going to play the harp."

Pansy paled. "Really? Oh. How... interesting. You like music, then?"

Teddy bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing, then said, "Sure."

"He's crazy on the strings," Donzo added, grinning wickedly. "I may have him play later when I sing for the Longbottoms."

Teddy, who'd never played the harp in his life (or had the slightest desire to do so), gave Donzo a helpless look as soon as Pansy turned to him.

"You're, er..." Pansy frowned in a confused way, then looked suddenly pleased with herself. "You're Donzo McCormack! You're dad's in the... Moonhowlers?"

"Weird Sisters."

"Of course, yes, they sang at the Yule Ball when I was at Hogwarts. Are you in Teddy's year? What N.E.W.T.s do you need to form a band? I've always wondered."

"It's an involved course of study with Binns and Sprout."

"Sprout?"

"Yes, she plays a wild accordion."

Pansy looked utterly lost, and Teddy felt sorry for her. None of the adults were talking to her, and she'd been reduced to a conversation with a stranger who happened to be the son of someone who'd taught her for a single year. He reached around and hit Donzo's arm. "Let her be," he said. "Donzo's just taking everything because he's too smart for his own good. He doesn't need any of it. And I don't play the harp."

"Oh." She smiled awkwardly. "I, er... well. I suppose you'll need to get used to people asking you what you mean to do this year. O.W.L.s, you know. Everyone's going to ask."

"I don't know what I want to do," Teddy said. This wasn't entirely true. He was fascinated with Frankie's mum's job - Maddie was an Unspeakable, and she always seemed to have something interesting on her mind, even if she couldn't talk about it. But as no one knew what Unspeakables really did, he didn't think anyone would be able to advise him about N.E.W.T.s for it. In fact, he had a feeling that unless they came to him, he'd not get inside no matter _what_ N.E.W.T.s he took. "It doesn't really seem real."

"Oh, dear, you need a plan! Hermione's awfully clever at plans, if I recall correctly. Perhaps she could help!" She preened, apparently impressed with herself for complimenting Hermione.

"I could ask."

A new song came up, and Pansy smiled more genuinely and stood up, looking around. "Oh, I love this..." She trailed off. Her husband was engrossed in a conversation with Uncle Harry, and she stopped rather than going over. "Oh, well. I suppose I can just listen." She cast around for somewhere to go.

Teddy stood up. "Could I have this dance, Mrs. Finch-Fletchley?"

"Oh, yes. Thank you." She went to the dance floor with him, looking both relieved and uncomfortable somehow, and Teddy managed to get her dancing. He caught Granny looking at him, and she smiled in a satisfied way. Teddy nodded back to her. She leaned over to Ellsworth, and a moment later, he came out and asked to cut in. Teddy bowed and backed away.

Granny caught him and guided him over to her table. "Very nice, Teddy," she said. "Your grandfather would have done that."

"You think so?"

"Absolutely. He had a great deal of patience with girls who grew up with unsavory connections."

"But you weren't nasty like Pansy was in school!"

"Not on that subject, but I rather think Lucius Malfoy wouldn't have counted me as demure and well-mannered." She stirred her tea. "What did she want to talk about?"

"My plans for the future."

"Mm, yes. O.W.L. year. She's a Slytherin. She'll assume you have a master plan."

"Do _you_ assume that?"

Granny smiled. "I've spent quite enough time among Gryffindors to know that you haven't the slightest inkling of one, Teddy. But you really must start thinking about the subject. You'll have your meeting with Neville later this year, and you will need to decide what classes you need to take, and which O.W.L.s you need to study particularly hard for."

"I thought I'd just study the ones I'm really interested in and see what they're good for."

"Oh, yes, that'll work brilliantly." She rolled her eyes. "Teddy, you may have to master things you're not interested in if you mean to do everything you _are_ interested in."

Teddy grimaced and took a sip of Ellsworth's drink (it was a vile, coconut flavored thing that made phantom palm trees shimmer at the edge of Teddy's vision). He had a feeling he'd be more than a little sick of being asked about his future by the end of the year. The only one of his friends (other than Donzo, who was already doing the job he meant to do) who had the slightest idea what he wanted was Frankie, who was going into his last year and taking whatever N.E.W.T.s happened to please him, because he meant to go into the publishing business with his father, and his father wasn't requiring anything in particular, as long as he got at least two solid Exceeds Expectations among five N.E.W.T.s.

Well, Ruthless knew as well. She'd had her career advice interview last year, and had needed to admit her ambition to be an Auror, which had meant brutal study sessions and some private tutoring in Potions from Teddy, which had ultimately led to Teddy's girlfriend Lizzie breaking up with him, even though nothing had happened until after the break-up, and that hadn't been _much_ , and...

Granny snapped her fingers under his nose. "It's a wedding, Teddy," she said. "Smile. Go dance with someone you want to dance with. Even if it's dangerous to life and limb." She winked at Ruthless, who was famous for accidentally hitting her partners with flailing arms while she danced. At present, she was dancing with James, who wasn't much better, but had the excuse of being eight.

He braced himself for the pain and started over, but was interrupted partway by Victoire, who'd already managed to dance with all of her cousins and her father, and was waiting for a dance with the groom. A moment later, she had Teddy out on the floor, and he had to admit, she was a less dangerous dance partner than Ruthless, especially as the music slowed. They talked about Gryffindor and the pranks she meant to play this year, and about the cousins and all the new words her youngest brother, Lance, had been learning ("Marie taught him a word that Mum wishes he wouldn't say, and now he says it all the time - Marie's in such trouble!"). She didn't press about O.W.L.s, though she said she was curious. They'd danced three songs before he particularly noticed the time passing, and he was in a considerably better mood. When Professor Longbottom asked if he might cut in, Teddy felt an absurd urge to say no, then remembered that he could more or less dance with Victoire any time the family got together, and it wasn't like she was a girlfriend, and if he happened to dream later about dancing with her in a forest glade again, it didn't mean anything at all, except that she did still have Veela blood, and that was undoubtedly why he'd been momentarily entranced. With this firmly in mind, he went back to his table, where Ruthless was waiting with her eyebrow raised inquisitively. Teddy ignored this, and asked her what she and James had been talking about.

Teddy's friends went one by one to do their shifts serving. Maurice was called into service dancing with older ladies who were there by themselves, including Augusta Longbottom and Pomona Sprout. Minerva McGonagall was there alone as well, but no Gryffindor would allow her to sit out any song she showed a desire to dance to, so no special arrangements were needed. While Teddy danced with her, she brought up the subject of the books again. "I'm not entirely certain I ought to have shared them with you, you know," she said. "There are dangers involved in the Animagus transformation if you actually tried the practice, which of course, you're not doing."

"Well, if I were to try anything, which I wouldn't, I'd make sure to use all the precautions, and I'd have Ruthless or Donzo around to look after me if anything went wrong. Like, for instance, turning my fingernails into feathers. Which might have happened - hypothetically - last year, if I'd just started out toward the end of a book. But Ruthless would have fixed it perfectly well, if it had been her turn when it didn't happen."

"Ah, yes. Well, feathers would have been a minor inconvenience. Don't forget Maris Vissen who - "

" - turned into a fish while she was visiting Timbuktu."

"A spot of trouble breathing," Professor McGonagall said.

"In theory, I wouldn't have that problem."

"You've other books you need to be studying this year, Mr. Lupin," she said, more sternly. "Even purely studying the theory of the Animagus transformation, as you're no doubt doing, can be time-consuming. Don't let it interfere with your O.W.L.s. What do you mean to do?"

Teddy sighed, and continued the dance.

They stayed at the reception long after the bride and groom left (Ernie and Susan Macmillan were left as hosts), and by the time Teddy got home, he was deeply tired.

He went to his room, actually rather hoping for a pleasant dream about dancing in the forest with Victoire - or any of the other girls who might choose to visit - but instead, he found himself standing on the edge of a cliff. He didn't know the place. Below him, trees swayed in the wind. They seemed to grow in a strange, almost geometric pattern.

A maze.

The wind gusted behind him, and he sailed out into the darkness, his arms spreading, becoming wings. Inside the maze, he could see Victoire, dancing with her sisters, and Ruthless, dueling someone. His parents were there, beyond a wall of trees, laughing with Sirius in the kitchen at Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place. Somewhere else, he saw Uncle Harry, walking through the woods, looking terrified, a stone clasped in his hands. As he rose higher, he could see more - strangers, friends, relatives in all times and all places. A man with a desperate, bloody face looked up at him, and something cold went through him. He circled above, then suddenly, the trees grew, and he was lost in the dark, unable to get above the canopy. His wings seemed to melt away, and he crashed to the ground, alone.

He woke up just before noon, his heart pounding. Granny had gone to St. Mungo's, leaving him a bit of gold, a bag of Floo powder, and an instruction to go off and do something amusing, if he happened to wake up before she got home at six.

Teddy put it into his pocket, thinking he might go back to Diagon Alley, where his friends were all helping the Gudgeons get things back in order today. He meant to do it.

Instead, he tossed the powder into the fire and called, "Badger Hill!"

A moment later, he spun out into the Apcarnes' kitchen.

Maddie was at the stove, although it was the afternoon of a work day. Two teacups were set up at the table, and a small wooden box sat between them.

"Hello, Teddy," Maddie said. "Please sit down."

Curious, Teddy pulled out one of the chairs. A pitcher of milk flew over and dropped a dollop into his tea, and two sugar cubes leapt up over the edge. He stirred it. "You knew I was coming?"

Maddie turned away from the stove, a pan of hot biscuits in her hand. She set it down between them. Teddy generally thought of her as a Hufflepuff version of Molly Weasley - thick through the waist, a pleasantly round face, a good cook and jolly mother... and no one to cross, if push came to shove. He took a biscuit.

Maddie sat down and put her hand on the wooden box. "This is a Daedalus Maze, Teddy," she said.

A flash of last night's dream came to Teddy, spiraling down among the trees, his wings seared. " _What?_ "

"It was initially invented as a Divination toy, by a man called Dedalus Royce. The name has stayed in the family, though the last name has been lost - they're the Diggles, now."

Teddy didn't know what she expected him to say to this, so he didn't say anything.

Maddie went on. "That was perhaps a hundred and fifty years ago. The Department of Mysteries was less a proper Ministry Department at the time than a gentlewizard's social club. It had been more once, of course. The Ministry wouldn't have incorporated it if it hadn't been. But at the time, it was Royce, Phineas Black - that's when they started calling him 'Nigellus,' they were mad for classical sounding names, Gordon Burke, Aloisus Leary, Percival Dumbledore... a few others. It doesn't really matter. It was considered a post for young men of good families who wanted a post, but were above such drudgery as legislation or law enforcement. Good minds, all of them."

"What did they do, though?" Teddy asked. "What was it _for?_ "

"Ah, the eternal question of the Department." Maddie laughed. "Ultimately, it was, at least in the Ministry's eyes, for nothing at all. The Department had once been involved in invention and innovation, but during that time, it was devoted largely to debating, and to explorations of what most people deemed thoroughly esoteric matters. Professor Black maintained this as his ideal of how the department should operate for the remainder of his life - pure research."

"I've talked to his portrait," Teddy put in. "That sounds about right."

Maddie smiled faintly; she'd met Phineas's portrait as well. "There were a few voices asking for it to be shut down," she went on, "and their gold to be spent in more productive ways, but most people thought it a harmless way for restless young wizards to entertain themselves. Very few of them were happy when the lot of them quit _en masse_. Phineas, in particular, began to make a pest of himself about Wizarding education. Burke, of course, went on to take his family's little shop and turn it into a much _bigger_ pest, though it was his son Caractacus who made it the charming boutique we know now. And you know what happened to Percival Dumbledore."

"Azkaban," Teddy said. "Because he went after those berks who hurt his daughter."

"Yes."

"Why did they all quit?"

"It's a matter none of them saw fit to commit to writing, though interviews with Percival at Azkaban shed some light on it." She nudged the wooden box forward. "After he'd been at Azkaban for ten years - this would be close to the time his wife died - he asked for Dedalus's maze. No one knew what he meant. They asked Phineas, as they'd been close, but he refused to answer. Finally, someone made the connection to Dedalus Royce, who'd passed away. His daughter Ariadne had found a wooden box with a maze carved into it. It was brought to Percival. He lived another fifteen years, nearly all in his right mind, though he wasn't entirely _present_."

"It was this box?" Teddy asked, reaching out.

"Oh, no. This is one of dozens that have been made since. After Percival died, Ariadne took the maze back. She learned to use it, and she put in some safety measures."

Teddy looked up sharply. " _Safety_ measures?"

"Yes." Slowly, Maddie pulled the box back to herself and turned it absently with her fingers. "It began as a Divination toy - more advanced than tea leaves and crystal balls, but still just a mode of fortune telling. Royce's thought was that the future had many potential outcomes, and he wanted a tool that he could use to try different paths and see where they led at any given juncture. Not altogether different from what your grandfather did, trying to help people find the best new paths after catastrophic sorts of injuries."

"What did it become?"

Maddie sighed. "It's not easy to answer. It became itself, Teddy, which is the only thing any creature or object can rightfully become."

Teddy morphed at her, letting his face run through any number of images. "Really?"

She rolled her eyes. "We both know that's cosmetic," she said. "And if I learned one thing growing up with your mum, it's that you can only morph like that when you're reasonably sure who you are. When everything's changing, when you're confused... you find it more difficult, don't you?"

Teddy shrugged and brought his natural face back. "So, what is it?"

"Royce created the maze with a simple thought, but he was part of a group of brilliant, restless minds. They'd all added charms, and it began to do odd things in its quest to see the paths of choices."

Teddy imagined the men as the Marauders, in the Department of Mysteries instead of their Gryffindor dormitory, bending over a wooden box instead of a piece of parchment. He wondered if Phineas had ever been pictured quite as daring and mad as his great-great-grandson before, and rather doubted it. "What did it start to do?"

"It needed to understand more than time. Identity, the universe, the mind, faith, even death."

Teddy ground his teeth. He had no liking for Death, which he considered a mean-spirited relative who lived too close and always seemed to drop by with nasty news whenever things were going too well. Death was a liar and a cheat. On more than one occasion, Teddy had fancied punching Death in his spectral face. He thought it would be quite satisfying, no matter what the Uncle Harry's book of fairy tales had to say about the subject. This was also Granny's opinion, though she was careful not to share it with Uncle Harry. Every time she saved a patient's life at St. Mungo's, she would come home, prepare a drink, and laugh in death's face because she'd beaten him again. Then she would prepare another drink, and another, because the only times it had truly mattered to her, Death had won.

"Teddy?"

Teddy looked up, not sure how long he'd fumed at her single word. One single part of what she'd said. "The Mysteries," he said. "It shows all the Mysteries together."

"Yes. The maze grew inside itself. It became a way of exploring the way the Mysteries intersect with one another."

"So what were the safety measures for?"

"Mysteries aren't tame," Maddie said, giving Teddy a wan smile. "Ariadne Royce - who ended up reforming the Department and making us more useful to the Ministry - always thought that the men had managed to spook themselves somehow. So she found ways to keep it an observational tool, and created safety devices to see to it that no one went wandering. At first, they used it in the course of work, but finally, it became... well, I won't say 'tame,' of course, but nearly ritualized. What would a person see in it? How would he or she use it?"

"A test," Teddy said.

"In some senses. Mainly, it's a test for the benefit of the young person interested in what we do, a chance to dip into the Mysteries, view them from something of a distance. You could find out if these really are the questions you mean to be asking. You need to know before you choose your N.E.W.T.s; it's not a simple specialization." She pushed the box across with finality.

Teddy put his hand on it. "And if I say no?"

"Then you say no."

"And you Obliviate me?"

"I don't think it would come to that."

"Even if I decided to say no after using it for few months?"

"No. I may have to tie your tongue, but ultimately, I don't think it would matter much. When they call us Unspeakables, it's often quite literally true. There aren't always simple words. You'll see that."

Teddy nodded, and ran his finger over the lines of carving on the box. "How did you know I was coming?"

Maddie laughed. "I have a friend in Time," she said. "I asked her to let me know when the right time came up."

"Do you think my parents would like it?"

"Not in the least. I think if Tonks were here, we'd be having a rather large fight about the subject. I've been holding both halves of it in my head for weeks now. I think we'd have reached the point where she's sending your dad to the door to say that she's not prepared to talk to me just now."

"And what does Dad say in your head?"

"I'm not very good with Remus's dialogue. I didn't know him as well."

Teddy smiled. "Well, I do. I think he'd say, 'I'm not fond of it, but Teddy ought to make his own choice. I'll talk to Dora.'"

Maddie blinked. "That's a remarkably good guess, Teddy." She shook her head. "I'd like you to meet me at the Ministry tomorrow. I can teach you to use the maze. At Christmas, you can bring it back, and we'll talk."

Slowly, Teddy gathered the box to himself. It felt cool to the touch, and it felt powerful, like a strong magnet. He nodded. "All right," he said. "All right, I'll take it."


	3. Unspoken

**Chapter 3**

 **Unspoken**

Teddy started supper an hour before Granny got home from St. Mungo's.

This wasn't unusual; in the past few years, he'd begun to appreciate that Granny was tired when she finished her shift, and she wasn't a young woman anymore. He enjoyed cooking - as long as it was something he liked to eat - so he'd got in the habit of taking that particular duty off her schedule when he was home from school. His particular specialty was barbecuing fish, but the rainy weather was holding and he still wasn't free to do magic outside of school, so he settled for using the stove. A large steak, fresh potatoes, carrots... he was casting around for something for pudding when Granny came in.

She sat down. "All right, Teddy," she said. "You've managed to put together everything I like. What's going on?"

Teddy looked at the table. He hadn't really thought about it while he was doing it, but he had managed to put together Granny's favorite meal, and had put out the decent china for it. He sat down and said, "Well, I... I had a talk with Maddie Apcarne this morning."

Granny didn't look entirely surprised as Teddy told her about the meeting, and that Maddie had left him with a piece of equipment from the Department of Mysteries. When he finished, she just sighed and said, "Did you have anything in mind for pudding, or shall we head to Diagon Alley for ice cream sundaes? I could do with ice cream. Though the new shop isn't nearly as good as Fortescue's."

There had been seven new ice cream shops in Diagon Alley during Teddy's life. For a very brief time when Teddy was eight, two of them had been operating at the same time. But the "new shop" was never as good as Fortescue's, and proprietors continued to be punished for Fortescue's death.

Teddy pushed his potatoes around on his plate. "What do you think?"

"I think I've never had to ask twice about ice cream before."

"Granny, please."

She set her fork down. "It's not a surprise, Teddy. I've thought about it. I don't like you being in close quarters with that bloody Veil that killed Sirius, but I don't object in principle to the _idea_ of you working in the Department of Mysteries. Those sorts of questions have always been where your curiosity has led you. But it's not safe. You may be safer in body than you would be as an Auror, but..." She frowned, then repeated, "I'm not sure it's safe for you. Will you promise to be careful?"

"Yes. I promise." Teddy managed a few more bites of potato. "Maddie thinks my parents wouldn't like it."

"Maddie's right." Granny waved her wand, and her purse flew over. "Come on. That little theater group in Diagon Alley has a new show opening tonight. If we hurry with the ice cream, we could catch the curtain."

There was no further discussion. The new ice cream shop was satisfactory in Teddy's opinion - geared toward adults, with real art on the walls and actual service to tables instead of just waiting in line - but the play was horrible. Granny and Ellsworth were doing everything they could to support Wizarding arts, which they both felt were horribly neglected in the magical curriculum. A few good musicians had come out of the woodwork, and Cho Chang - well, Morse - was writing a book of poetry that Granny insisted was very good, but so far, the playwrights hadn't quite set the world on fire. This particular effort was a turgid musical about a Muggle-born boy trying to fit in, and Granny spent a great deal of time rolling her eyes and muttering about didacticism. Teddy enjoyed the evening anyway, as it ended in Fortescue Park, where he and Granny sat in the shadow of the statue and talked casually about the play and the other arts she'd been supporting, and Teddy's take on things through his friendship with Donzo. It wasn't an especially productive conversation, but Teddy rather enjoyed the fact that Granny was becoming 'Dromeda Tonks more often around him, and he _liked_ 'Dromeda Tonks.

It was fully dark by the time they got home, and Teddy went to his room, where the Daedalus Maze was sitting on his desk. Checkmate was sleeping beside it, her nose touching it lightly. Teddy stroked the soft fur between her ears and she woke up with a drowsy mew, then begged to be picked up. Teddy obliged, and sat down on the bed, scratching between her shoulder blades and looking at the Maze. He wondered if he would dream strangely with it so close.

He didn't.

When he finally fell asleep, the night was passed in light, senseless dreams of his friends and school and ocean breezes. He danced again with Victoire. Lizzie and Laura seemed to be watching. Lizzie said it had all been very didactic. Then James appeared, and started putting everyone into a play, casting Checkmate as Martian and Martian as Teddy and Teddy as Uncle Harry. "There's to be a dance here," he announced importantly. "Everyone must wear tap shoes!"

Teddy woke up the next morning with very clear memories of his dreams, and a distinctly foolish feeling about them. He was going to the Department of Mysteries to learn about being an Unspeakable, and instead of one of his _good_ dreams - the sort where he talked to his parents or put things together and came up with answers - the clearest thing in his head was being ordered to dance with a cat, while both of them wore tap shoes.

Granny had already left for work, but she'd left a large breakfast for him on the kitchen table, along with a note reminding him to behave himself and for heaven's sake dress like he respected the place he was going. She'd also left a copy of the _Daily Prophet_ , with several recent articles on the Ministry marked for him ("It can't hurt to be familiar with the issues"). He read them while he ate, then gave himself a quick check in the mirror. He'd decided his new school robes were appropriate for the day, and made sure his hair wasn't doing anything particularly strange. There was no need to shave - he'd done so for a few weeks when he'd first noticed an odd hair or two on his chin in May, but it had got old quickly, and he'd taken to just morphing his face clean-shaven (Frankie, whose hair grew quickly and frequently in random directions, professed deep envy for this) - and the robes had done away with the need to get a tie right, so he supposed he was ready. He stepped into the fireplace, called "Ministry of Magic," and spun off.

The Floo spat him out in the lobby of the Ministry. Two pieces of statuary had been destroyed during the war, and now, the long room was dominated by a simple fountain with abstract shapes. Daylight streamed down on it. It was a pleasant room, and Teddy had been in it many times with Uncle Harry, but it seemed different today, more foreboding. He went to the desk, where a witch was polishing her nails. She looked up with a smile. He didn't recall seeing her before, but people tended to come and go in this job quite a lot. "Good morning," she said. "I'm Romilda. How may I direct you?"

"Er... Department of Mysteries. I'm here to see Maddie Apcarne."

The witch scanned a piece of parchment importantly. "I don't see a Maddie Apcarne on our list. Is it short for something?"

Teddy was momentarily flummoxed. Maddie had never been anything but Maddie, at least in his lifetime, and it seemed a very strange notion that it wasn't her name, but there was some reason that she was called Maddie, it was short for her maiden name, and she'd used it because -

"Dora!" he said. "Her real name is Dora. They called her by her last name so people wouldn't get confused."

Romilda didn't look like she considered this a cure for confusion, but tapped her manicured nail on the parchment twice. "All right," she said. "And you are?"

"Teddy Lupin. Er, Ted."

"Hmm. You're listed." She flicked her wand, and a paper airplane swooped up from under the desk. "Apcarne, Mysteries, Lupin here," she said, and it flew off. She started to go back to her nails, but abruptly stopped after finishing two, looking up with a species of avarice that Teddy recognized far too well. "Lupin? Why, you're not Professor Lupin's son? Harry Potter's godson?"

"No," Teddy said. "Entirely different family, sorry."

"Ahem."

Teddy turned. Maddie was behind him. He smiled at her and shrugged.

She rolled her eyes. "Let's go, Teddy," she said. "I have a room set aside." She led him to the lift, and started talking when the door closed. "It's a small room, but we don't need much today. No one's assigned to it just now. It's between Faith and Beauty, and they're both perpetually understaffed. I don't suppose you have any burning interest in Faith or Beauty?" She looked at him without much hope, then shook her head. "Never mind, that's down the road."

The lift came down to the bottom, and Maddie led Teddy down a long, narrow corridor to an unmarked door. She opened it without fanfare, and Teddy found himself in a circular room with doors on every side.

Maddie closed the door to the corridor, and suddenly, the room began to spin, the doors slipping by in a blurry stream. She looked over her shoulder at Teddy and said, "Welcome to the Department of Mysteries."

The doors continued to spin for a minute, and Teddy entirely lost track of which he'd come through. He began to feel unstable on his feet, and grabbed the box more tightly, like it might keep him from drowning. An edge pushed against his inner arm harshly, just below the elbow.

Maddie put her hand on his shoulder, then called out, "Beauty!"

The doors came to a sudden stop (though Teddy's head was still spinning), and a door in front of them opened quietly. Soft golden light poured out of it, and Teddy could hear a river somewhere in the distance.

"Hmm," Maddie said. "Apparently, Davies decided to do some work in here after all. At least that better be what he's up to. Come on. The workroom is off to the side; I don't think we'll have to worry about the main room being active."

Teddy followed her in, trying not to look in every direction at once. The Beauty room shimmered and glowed. The walls seemed to open like windows into vistas all over the world. A lovely ghost floated near the ceiling. She turned and smiled and Teddy thought that a Veela would look dowdy beside her.

Maddie waved up to her. "Helen! Is Davies in here somewhere?"

The ghost pointed to a desert vista at sunset. When she spoke, she had a light trace of an accent that Teddy didn't recognize. "Mr. Davies has taken his Miss Bode to explore the intersection between Time and Beauty."

"I'll just bet he has," Maddie muttered. "When he comes out, please remind him that I'll be in the workroom. And that Miss Bode is apprenticed to Mr. Croaker. We'll be... Teddy?"

Teddy realized he was staring stupidly at the ghost, and at a painting beyond her, and a statue beyond that. Beautiful women, one after another.

Maddie grabbed his arm and rolled her eyes. "We should have come in through Faith."

Teddy blushed. "Er..."

"Never mind. You might do for Beauty after all, though not until you can learn to deal with it without losing touch."

She led him through the room at a brisk pace. At the edges, the images began to fade into a dusty, curved corridor. There were doors set regularly, and Teddy realized with a start that beyond them had to be the one room he'd heard described in detail - the Death room, with the veil at the bottom. The lingering sense of beauty left. He turned away from the line of doors. "So, there's Beauty and Faith and Time. And Death. What else is there?"

"The Universe. Identity. Love. No one works in Love; the room is locked."

"Why?"

"Some Mysteries are best left as Mysteries. There is no research that makes love anything other than a great Mystery. So we let it be. It's not one we can afford to damage."

"Has Beauty ever been damaged?"

"Oh, yes. Haven't you noticed that there are times when nearly everything becomes ugly?"

Teddy hadn't, really, so he just continued to follow her. "What about evil? Is evil a Mystery?"

Maddie stopped. "No. There's no mystery about evil. It's just narcissism run rampant. If anything, it's a flaw in Identity, and they sometimes study it there, but if you're looking for an explanation of why your mum's aunt felt it necessary to murder and torture, I don't think you need to look any further than the fact that it amused her to do so." She started walking again. "The Mysteries are the things that would have stopped her from doing whatever happened to enter her mind - a better understanding of Time and consequences, the idea of the vastness of the Universe..."

"The ability to love anyone at all?"

"Truly love, yes. I'm sure there were people she imagined she loved, but..." Maddie shrugged and stopped in front of a nondescript door, opposite one of the doors that led to the Death room. She opened it. "Here we are. _Lumos_."

Teddy followed her in, trying not to look too curious - or too disappointed once he'd got a good look.

The workroom was an unbroken box. The walls, floor, and ceiling were painted black. Various platforms were scattered around, and cardboard boxes had been shoved against the walls long enough ago that they were draped with cobwebs. It had apparently once been part of the Death room, maybe a higher level of observation, as, at the far side, another bank of seats rose up into the darkness. Several of these were cracked and broken. The room had obviously been used for storage over the years, as a tarnished old flagpole had been carelessly laid across the top row of seats and a wooden file cabinet, its drawers burst open, leaned against the bottom row at a precarious angle.

Something shattered, and Teddy looked involuntarily at the corner, where a tall glass case lay in ruins, spilling out hourglasses. As he watched, it reformed itself, and the hourglasses flew back onto the shelves.

Maddie shook her head. "It took them months to get that in here, but it was driving them quite mad in the Time offices."

"Is that the one that Uncle Harry...?"

"Yes. There was quite a mess in Time. Smashed prophecies all over the place. And this. We haven't been able to get to the Time Turners since. It's probably for the best. They were always mischievous things." She flicked her wand at the cabinet just as it started to shatter again, and the noise vanished, though it still went through its motions. Maddie turned back to Teddy. "I've got permission from Magical Law Enforcement for you to use magic outside school for this very limited purpose. You'll need to use the Maze at school, and that means learning it before you go. I can't teach you to use the safety tools if you can't use your wand."

"All right."

"Good, then. Set the maze down." She Summoned over one of the platforms, and Teddy put the Maze down on it. She examined it, checked a carved latch, then reached into her bag and drew out a small glass globe. "This is the primary safety net," she said. "Ariadne Royce created it, and... well, I'm sure you've picked up that they rather liked the classical references, so they called it Ariadne's Thread." She smiled sheepishly. "I sometimes think they had too much time on their hands."

"Is it like the real Ariadne's thread?" Teddy asked, taking it. "The one that Theseus used to get out of the Labyrinth?"

"Exactly. It keeps track of where you've been, and if you're lost, you can use it to call yourself back to where you started."

"I think it's a good name," Teddy said, then noticed Maddie looking at him oddly. "Mum had a book of myths. I read it when I was little."

"I know about the book, Teddy. She had it at Hogwarts. Did you know it was a present from your dad?"

"No. Granny said she'd forgotten where it came from. She just said Mum had it everywhere. It's falling apart."

"I don't doubt it." Maddie checked the box again. "All right, Teddy. You can take out your wand. The incantation is _Sulci Numine_."

"What will happen?"

"It's hard to say, exactly. The paradigm is always a maze - it was Dedalus Royce's best notion of how to follow paths, and it's part of the device's core identity. But what sort of maze it will be, or what you'll see in it, depends a great deal on what you bring in. Since we'll be going in together, it's likely to at least start us in places that we share. When you're using it on your own, you may see something entirely different from what we'll see here today."

"Does it matter?"

"For learning to use it? Not at all. You'll learn to use Ariadne's Thread, to follow what you see, to ask questions - those are the sorts of things you'll be doing no matter where it takes you. Are you ready?"

"I think so." Teddy raised his wand, then stopped. "I don't know what I'm bringing with me."

"I'll be there with you."

"If it's something... you won't... well, this is just between us, right? You won't tell anyone what I see?"

"It's between us."

"Even your bosses? Aren't they meant to be judging me?"

"Not on your first try, and once we're past this, you're the only one who'll directly know. When we talk, it's more to explore your aptitude than to discuss anything specific, unless it's something you feel you need to talk about - in which case, I hope you know that I'll listen as a friend and not someone you're talking to about a job."

"It doesn't matter what I see? Really? But wouldn't I need to be able to see specific things?"

Maddie laughed. "That's what Trelawney is for. We don't See on command. Our job is exploration. It's very difficult to explore something if you already know what's there."

Teddy braced himself and raised his wand. "All right, then. Ready for anything. _Sulci Numine!_ "

The world around him grayed and spun into nothingness, a deep London fog. He heard voices in the slipstream, soft and muted, just beyond his comprehension. Shapes began to spring into being around him, shadows and shades, whispered visions. Beneath his feet, something solid started to take form, and he felt himself standing on a rock. A warm hand fell on his shoulder, and he knew Maddie had joined him. The fog began to clear, only a little bit at a time.

They were standing in a high place, the place from Teddy's dream, and beneath them, the maze stretched out into the endless mist. A narrow, rocky path led down to the entrance.

"Don't let go of the Thread," Maddie said. "And never go further than you can remember all of your turns." She looked down the path. "Shall we?"

Teddy nodded and took the first steps down the path. It seemed long at the top of the rise, but it seemed less than ten steps before he reached the arched entrance to the maze. Beyond it, in the mist, he could see a slight figure waiting, hands on her slim hips. She looked over her shoulder and smiled at him, but Teddy already knew who she was.

"Mum," he whispered.

She beckoned to him, and he followed her into the fog, the Thread clasped in one hand, Maddie a few steps behind.

"It's not really her," Maddie whispered. "It's an image. That's all. Something to start leading us on our way."

Teddy nodded impatiently. "Yes, of course." He reached out one hand, then jumped backward, cursing, his fingertips burned. "What the - ?"

"Don't touch anything here," Maddie said dryly. "Really, Teddy. Touching things in a magical environment you don't know? I didn't think I'd need to tell you that." The wryness in her face faded and she said, "I'm sorry, Teddy. I should've realized it would be Tonks and warned you. I'm afraid I've got used to seeing odd things, working here."

"Have you seen Mum before?"

"Yes. Have you?"

"Yes."

Maddie regarded him calmly and didn't ask how, or what Mum had said.

Teddy looked at the image, who was blinking serenely, apparently unaware that she'd caused Teddy any discomfort. "All right," he said. "No touching. Where, er..." He looked between Maddie and Mum, then finally turned to Maddie. "What's she doing here? What's she meant to lead to?"

"That's up to you. Look at her closely. What do you see?"

Teddy went to her. "I see Mum," he said. "I see... I don't know. She doesn't seem like herself."

"Look harder. And if you need to stop suddenly, then squeeze the Thread and whisper 'Home.'"

Teddy nodded. "I see..." He concentrated on the image in front of him, its beatific smile, its wavy pink hair, its small, outstretched arm. Its eyes were deep pools, shifting color, and Teddy looked at the more closely. He could see himself in them, then Granny, then a shift to the gray eyes of the Blacks, the turning of time -

"Mum!"

The figure drew away suddenly, fading back into the Maze, down a wide corridor among prickly bushes. She turned and morphed, shrinking, laughing, becoming a small boy, first Teddy, then someone else, someone Teddy recognized from a tiny drawing at Number Twelve Grimmauld Place. "That's Sirius Black. Er... not _Sirius_ Sirius, of course, but Phineas Nigellus's brother Sirius. He was a Metamorphmagus."

"Interesting," Maddie said.

"Is this Time?"

"Could be. Or Identity."

Sirius smiled and ran around a corner to the right. Teddy followed. Around him, the Maze became a hazy London street. It was in such good, smart condition that it took Teddy a moment to realize he was at Grimmauld Place at all. A man and a small boy were sitting on the steps of Number Twelve, and when Teddy looked at the small boy, he knew it to be Phineas, who was six years old and thought his big brother to have nearly godlike powers. He was grinning wildly, waving at Sirius, who was chasing a bright red ball that their father had thrown. A Quaffle, though the Muggles in the street wouldn't have known that. Teddy could hear horses and carriages nearby.

"What is this?" Maddie asked.

"No idea."

"What did you see in your Mum?"

"The Blacks, but I still don't know what this is, except that it's Phineas and his brother." He watched the brothers play catch for a moment. Their father went inside. "Didn't you say that Phineas is part of the first Maze?"

"Yes."

"Well... I'm part of Phineas. So maybe that's why the Maze took me here."

"Maybe." Maddie didn't look convinced. "Were you wondering about that?"

"I must have been."

The bells of a carriage were getting closer.

Teddy was watching little Phineas carefully, wondering what he was meant to see here, when suddenly, the little boy dropped the Quaffle and stood stock still, his eyes wide and terrified. The jangling of bells was very loud.

"SIRIUS!" Phineas cried.

Sirius ran around Teddy and tackled Phineas out of the way, but tripped over his own shoelaces in the road. He couldn't get back up.

The carriage barreled out of a nearby street, the driver barely looking.

Phineas screamed, and the Maze faded to green leaves, the only image left, little Phineas Black, someday to be Nigellus, crawling toward the spot where his brother had been, but instead of reaching it, he turned down a leftward passage, and when Teddy followed, the little boy had become a man, and he was sitting in a cell at Azkaban with another man, a broken-looking man with thick auburn hair that was matted and unkempt.

Phineas shook his head sternly. "Percival, you're making a mistake, not telling them the truth of what happened. Who would blame you after what those filthy Muggles did to Ariana? I'll get you out of this."

Percival shook his head weakly. "No. Can't tell. Kendra will take care of her... can't tell. Don't let them know."

"I can get you out of here if I do."

"No, Phineas. I committed the crime of which I am accused."

"Against filthy little Muggle _beasts_..."

"You were wondering about evil," Maddie said softly. "I think the Maze is showing you some of what went into... what happened to the Blacks."

"Phineas isn't evil," Teddy protested. "He's just Phineas. Mum and Sirius called him Grayfur. He's not evil."

Phineas stood up and strode across the cell, and the cell disappeared. An arch appeared, another path leading off to the right. He took it.

"Should I follow?" Teddy asked.

Maddie thought about it. "Do you remember the turns so far?"

"We went in straight, then right, then left."

"All right then. But keep your hand on the Thread. I don't trust this."

Teddy nodded and followed Phineas, who was changing as they watched, his hair becoming short and pink, his buttoned shoes becoming bright-colored trainers. It was Mum again, but she brought Teddy no comfort. She looked weak and tired, and she was searching, and given the turn of events so far...

"Remus?" she called helplessly. "Remus!"

There was a soft groan from a short distance away, and she ran to a form that appeared on the ground in front of her. Teddy could now see the battlements of Hogwarts above them, and the shadowed form of a giant.

"Oh, my God! Remus!" Mum ran to him and got out her wand. "I'm here, Dora's here, I'll get you stabilized and out of here, Mum can take care of this, Dora's here, oh, God, Remus, your Dora's here..."

Something detached itself from the shadows, and the starlight glinted on steel.

Maddie grabbed Teddy's hand, wrapped it around the Thread, and yelled, "Home!"

The Maze whirled away into white mist, and then Teddy was thrown back into the black box of a room where he'd begun.

Maddie landed beside him, her face ashen. "All right. You're going to need to control what you ask about at first. That was... Teddy, are you all right?"

Teddy touched his face, which was cold, and the floor beneath him, half-expecting to feel the blood-soaked grass under the north battlements, surprised to find only wooden boards. "I - no."

"Do you want me to take the Maze back? You don't need that."

Teddy shook his head. "That's the worst place it can take me. I can handle it. I'm not five. I know what happened."

Maddie looked less than convinced. "Knowing and seeing are different things. I don't know if I can leave you with this in good conscience. I don't want to torture you just to find out how you think!"

Teddy turned and looked at her. Her hands were shaking, and she was crying. He didn't think she'd noticed the latter. He touched his face again. It was dry. Numb, but dry. "Doesn't everyone who works here have to do it?"

"Yes, but - "

"So, I have to, or I won't be able to work here."

"Still, it's - "

Teddy took a shaky breath. "I'm all right. I can do it."

"Teddy, your parents wouldn't want you to see that."

"How do you know? Maybe they would. Maybe they want me to know what happened. Maybe that's why she showed me."

"Teddy, that wasn't Tonks. It _wasn't_. She'd never want you to see her like that. That was you following your own thoughts, and that's why I'm worried."

"I do think about other things," Teddy said. "Maybe next time, it'll show me something good. I can try not to wonder about evil and death." He tried a smile. "Granny told me this could be dangerous. I should listen to Granny more."

"Generally wise," Maddie said. She was still shaking, but she was exerting some control. "Do you want to talk?"

He shook his head. "I think I know how to use it. And I can Floo you if I have trouble, right?"

"Of course."

"What if I sent my Patronus from inside the Maze?"

"I'm not sure. I've never tried."

"Maybe I should try."

"It's a powerful spell," Maddie said. "I wouldn't, unless you're really sure what will happen."

Teddy nodded. "Can we try again? We have all day here, right? I should learn to control it more."

"I'm not sure about this, Teddy."

"You'll be with me. Let's ask about something else. If we see Mum again, I'll wonder about, I don't know, her wardrobes. I've never known what to do with all of those clothes. Maybe she can show me." He widened his smile until it felt quite mad.

Maddie tried to return the smile, but just couldn't seem to do it. She pulled herself up, dusted her robes off, and said, "All right, Teddy. But if it goes there again, I'll pull you out again."

"That incantation's easy enough that I think I can do it myself," Teddy said. "And trust me - I will."

She chewed on her lip. "All right."

Teddy raised his wand. " _Sulci Numine._ "


	4. Gifts and Curses

**Chapter 4:**

 **Gifts and Curses**

Teddy spent the rest of the day in the Daedalus Maze. He suspected Maddie of exerting more control than she admitted - after the first time, all of their entrance points were innocuous. Granny's garden, a young Frankie, a day at the beach with Daffy. Teddy wasn't bored with these explorations. Granny's garden led to a look at breathtaking jungles, Frankie to visions of Teddy's own childhood (which were strange to look at from the outside), the beach to the vastness of the ocean and the stars above it. At tea time, Maddie suggested that they call it quits for the day. She was satisfied that he could enter and leave at will, and understood the rules, though she still seemed worried about sudden morbid turns of thought.

"Teddy, I don't think you're ready for Death quite yet. Would you let it be for a bit?"

Teddy considered pointing out that he hadn't been ready for Death when he was two weeks old, either, but it had paid him a very nasty visit nonetheless. Instead, he just shrugged and muttered, "I'll do my best."

She nodded. "Would you like to come to supper? Frankie's been trying new magical cooking styles since he came of age."

"Er... yes. I know." Teddy smiled. "I think I'd best go back and use some non-magical style to make supper for Granny. I do that in the summer."

"All right. I'll get you home." She offered her arm, and Teddy grasped it just above the elbow. A moment later, they were by the pond behind Granny's house. A duck, accustomed to such sudden appearances, floated serenely past. "Are you quite sure you're all right with what we saw?" Maddie asked.

"I'm fine," Teddy repeated. "I knew."

"Are you - ?"

"I'm sure."

She frowned at him. "Owl or Floo if you get into trouble at school, Teddy. I mean it. I'm not at all convinced of this anymore."

"As an Unspeakable, or as Mum's friend?"

"Small hint - if you start to get into Identity, _try_ to avoid schisms like that. The Unspeakable is Tonks's friend is Frankie's mum. If you start splitting yourself, you may well find things you don't care for."

Teddy waited.

Maddie sighed. "All right. It's the part of me that's looking out for you. Tonks wouldn't thank me for getting you into trouble. At the same time, you saw more today than I was seeing when I gave my Maze back to Mr. Bode. You have a gift. I'm just not sure you ought to be particularly thankful for it." She started to turn away.

"I've talked to them," Teddy said. Maddie stopped and looked at him. He squared his shoulders. "I've talked to them. I'm thankful for it."

Maddie started to say something, then just nodded, turned on her heel, and Disapparated. Teddy went inside and started supper.

Over the next several days, he let the matter of the Daedalus Maze lie. He couldn't work with it until he got to school, and he had other things to occupy him. Professor McGonagall sent another book on Animagus theory - _The Shape of Your Beast: Animagi And Meaning_ , by May Crowfeather. McGonagall had warned him that "meanings" were suspect ("I'm sure Sybill Trelawney would be able to read you chapter and verse, Mr. Lupin, but a person studying the Animagus transformation, in the end, has to know what the animal means to him personally"), but he'd been curious about theories. He didn't find much enlightening about the hawk symbolizing a messenger, though, and it didn't seem to fit with the joy he felt about his Patronus, or that he remembered in Dad's vision of a hawk flying above his grandfather's home.

There was a surprise party to plan for Ruthless, whose birthday was the day before everyone returned to Hogwarts (they were planning to have the party on board the Hogwarts Express), making her the youngest in her year, and there were games and stories and visits among the various people who considered Teddy family. His favorite of these was to Bill and Fleur Weasley's home, where Victoire was helping her younger sister, Marie, get ready for Hogwarts. Victoire posed as a proper young lady, but she was well-known as a prankster, and appeared to be training Marie to join the fun. Teddy spent several happy hours with them, playing pranks on the younger children and on Fleur.

Thoughts of parties, or even the Daedalus Maze, were shoved rudely aside by Horace Slughorn a week before August's full moon. He arrived at Granny's, a box of potion ingredients floating along beside him, and said, quite jovially, "Well, Lupin, you'll be solo this month."

Teddy dropped a spool of ribbon he was using on Ruthless's present and said, "What?" He stood up. He knew his potions, and got good marks, but the idea that someone's life might depend on this wasn't a welcome one. He still made mistakes, and just last June had managed to turn a simple Shrinking Solution into an acid that had eaten his cauldron. It had been a one-time thing, but one time, one mistake, was all it took. "I mean, come in. Please."

Slughorn waddled in and stood in the kitchen doorway. "I'll oversee it this month, but as I won't be at the school properly this year, I want you to brew it yourself. From cuttings up. And for heaven's sake, bring your dragon-hide gloves. Wolfsbane is poison, and I don't want to see you nicking your finger anywhere near it."

"But - "

"Don't act like I'm out of line. Your mum was a good brewer because she only let the top level of her mind wander while she took care of the drudgery. You try to act like you're concentrating, but your deep mind is off somewhere in Antarctica."

"I know. You've said that. I'll be careful. But... solo... won't you even come to Hogwarts to help with Neil? Doesn't Cho - er, Professor Morse - know how to do it?"

"Cho is proficient with potions she needs, but she is well aware that she isn't a Potions Master. She's taking the position only long enough for the Headmistress to find a true expert, rather than settling for what can be had on short notice, and possibly being stuck with it." He frowned impressively. "My dear boy, you have spent a year learning this, and you have mastered it quite well enough to be getting on with. I shall come if I am able, but I certainly hope that the hours we spent together this past year haven't left you with no confidence at all!"

"But I'm fifteen! I don't even have my O.W.L. yet!"

"The O.W.L. does not confer skill, Mr. Lupin, it merely recognizes and quantifies it."

"But if I do it wrong, I could kill Neil!"

"As could I."

There was no arguing the point, and within the hour, Teddy found himself in the south of France, in a cabin owned by the werewolves Nate and Evelyn Blondin, where they lived with their adopted child, Neil. Evvie watched anxiously as he set up the fire and let it get to its proper temperature (Slughorn had to do the spells to maintain it, but they both knew that Teddy could control fire), then sat down at the long wooden table and began to chop, Slughorn looking on impassively from a large, comfortable armchair he'd Conjured.

"I'd like to take it this month," Evvie offered. "Before Neil does. To... to..."

"To make sure you're brewing it properly," Nate finished. "No offense, Lupin. Neil's the only child we've got."

"None taken," Teddy managed. "But I don't want to kill Evvie, either."

"You're not going to kill anyone," Slughorn said. "You've done perfectly so far, though you're endangering your own finger at the moment, gloves or no."

Nate, apparently satisfied by this answer, cracked a smile. "Well, if you cut off your fingertip, try throwing it in. I'm told it takes the edge off the curse the morning after."

"Nate!" Evvie rolled her eyes. "Honestly."

Teddy ignored this sort of banter - Evvie always pretended to be shocked by Nate's jokes, and Nate never meant anything by it. He reminded Teddy vaguely of his friend Corky - slightly off-kilter from time to time, and not overly concerned with pieties, but never actually crossing a line he'd regret. He'd have certainly been a Slytherin, though of course, he'd never had the opportunity to attend Hogwarts and find out. Neil would be the first werewolf student at Hogwarts since Dad had left thirty-five years ago. This time, it wouldn't be a secret, though Teddy didn't think they were taking out a page in the _Prophet_ (or even the _Charmer_ ) to advertise it. That would be different. Dad had needed to hide, to be afraid all the time that he'd be revealed. He hadn't even trusted his friends; they'd needed to figure it out on their own. He'd -

"Lupin!" Slughorn said sharply.

Teddy looked up sharply, and his knife skated down the edge of his glove. If he hadn't been wearing it, he might well have had to take Nate up on the idea of tossing human flesh into the potion. "Er... sorry," he said.

He went on chopping, aware that Slughorn was watching him more carefully.

Evvie and Nate both ended up taking doses from Nate's cauldron, just before sunset. Slughorn said that any negative reaction would be immediate and ugly, but Teddy wanted to stay anyway, at least for an hour, to make sure nothing had gone wrong. Slughorn knew antidotes, and if he couldn't do anything, Teddy would call Granny and she'd take care of it.

"It's completely unnecessary," Slughorn said. "But if would set your mind at ease - and Mr. and Mrs. Blondin have no objections - I see no reason you can't stay and reassure yourself."

"We never mind having Teddy," Evvie said fondly. "And actually, it went down quite easily. It still tastes horrid, but I suppose there's nothing to be done for it. As long as I've enough of my mind to recognize the awful taste, it's an improvement over not having it." She glanced at the kitchen door, where Neil had been hovering. "You may as well come in. If Papa Nate and I are all right in an hour - and I think we will be - you'd do as well to start your doses."

Neil came in, slithered around Teddy, and dropped into a chair, his eyes wide. He looked at Teddy and blinked several times.

"Er," Teddy started, unable to think of what Neil was asking. The boy had seen his family murdered two years ago, when Fenrir Greyback had turned him, and hadn't been entirely right since, though he'd at least got to the point where he played normally with children he knew after a while. When he was nervous, though, it seemed to possess his mind as thoroughly as the full moon. Teddy gave him an encouraging smile. "Er... did you get your wand, Neil?"

Neil nodded.

"What's in it?"

Neil blinked a few more times, then mumbled something.

Evvie looked over mildly. "What's the name of the wood again, Neil?"

"M..." Neil chewed his lip, then - a bit too loudly, but clearly - said, "Maple. With one of Mum Evvie's tail hairs."

"Berit Ollivander made that?" Teddy asked, surprised. Berit had once experimented with cores, but she'd cut back quite a lot, and even at her most adventurous, would have thought werewolf hair too volatile.

Evvie laughed. "Oh, no. Berit said it was quite a mad idea. We went to a wandmaker in Paris. Spanish ex-pat. Says he wants to push to the very edge of the acceptable."

"That's not wise," Slughorn said.

"I told Neil that I'd always be there with him this way," Evvie said.

Teddy, who carried his mother's wand and used his father's for the Marauder's Map, considered this perfectly valid reasoning, and ignored Slughorn's tutting. He smiled at Neil. "Well, that's good, then. You'll be fine."

"They won't like me."

"Why shouldn't they like you?"

"Marie Weasley doesn't like me when she comes here, and she'll be in my year."

"What? What makes you think that? I'm sure Marie likes you. And if she does anything out of place, I _know_ Victoire will Curse her back a year."

Neil smiled widely. He seemed to like Victoire, who had stabbed Greyback in the face during the final confrontation. "Do you think so?"

"Absolutely."

"And no one would argue with Victoire!"

Teddy considered this. "Well, I wouldn't go that far, but arguing with Victoire is definitely not free."

"Good." Neil looked at the cauldron, and Evvie ignored him. He turned back to Teddy. "I have my books as well. I think I'll like Potions best. I want to brew my own Wolfsbane Potion. What do you like best? Do you play on the Quidditch Team? Who are the nice teachers?"

"I like all my classes, I don't even like Quidditch when my girlfriend is playing, and as far nice teachers go, you already know Professor Longbottom, and he's the best of all, but there's no one cruel anymore. My other favorite is Professor Robards. He teaches Defense Against the Dark Arts."

Neil frowned. "I read the book. It talks about werewolves. Do we have to talk about werewolves in class? Will I have to answer questions?"

"Not unless you want to," Teddy said. "Why don't I introduce you to Professor Robards when you get there, and you could talk to him before it comes up in class? Then you'll know what to expect."

Neil agreed eagerly.

"You know," Evvie said, "Teddy's dad once gave us some books about lycanthropy. We all thought we didn't need them, but they turned out quite interesting. You may find out things that it's good to know."

They talked out the rest of the hour, mainly about Hogwarts, and what Neil might expect. Evvie and Nate remained healthy, and at the end of the hour, Evvie dipped a goblet into the simmering potion, and Nate handed it to Neil. Neil drank it. He wrinkled his nose, but had no other reaction. Teddy made sure there was enough to last for the week, then made a quick pain-killing potion that Sirius (and later, Mum) had used to make for Dad. It was simple, but it worked for the morning after transformation, and Teddy enjoyed feeling connected to Mum and Sirius as he worked.

"I should check on them tomorrow," he said as he climbed into a cart beside Slughorn for the trip down the mountain. "Just to make sure."

"You're sure, Lupin. Now, you just want more thanks."

Teddy ground his teeth. That wasn't at all true. He didn't talk to Slughorn the rest of the way down, and was glad that it was really too late at night to invite him in when they got back to Granny's.

The next day, Granny invited Bill Weasley's family and Uncle Harry's for a picnic. Teddy was in Granddad's "Muggle-room" in the basement - where all of the electronic gadgets had been stored and where they continued to age in dusty silence - when the Weasleys arrived. Mum's seven wardrobes were also here, and when Victoire bounded down the stairs and slipped inside, he was sitting beside the open bottom drawer of an armoire.

She dropped down across from him and looked curiously at the contents. "What are you looking for?"

"I don't know," Teddy said. "Ruthless is starting the N.E.W.T.s she needs to go for an Auror post. I thought maybe there'd be something of Mum's I could give her for luck. You know - Mum being an Auror... you know."

"Oh. That's nice."

"Well, I think Mum would like Ruthless. I think she'd want to give her something."

"It's a good idea."

"Really, I don't think Mum would mind."

"All right." Victoire pushed her hair behind her ears and put one delicate hand in the drawer, pushing apart old hair ribbons and lace headbands. There were also piles of costume jewelry here. Nothing looked particularly Auror-ly. Victoire pulled up a pink tulle hair wrap with star-shaped sparkles worked into the netting. "I wouldn't give Ruth this," she said. "It would clash with her hair."

Teddy took it and smoothed it carefully before folding it and putting it back in the drawer. "It would clash with a lot of things."

"Did she have a badge?"

Teddy shook his head. "They took it when they sacked her for marrying Dad. Uncle Harry tried to find it for me, but I guess they destroyed it. And even if... well, I wouldn't give Ruthless Mum's _badge_. That's, you know, Mum's."

Victoire pulled a straw hat from the drawer and put it on. "I suppose this doesn't really say 'Auror.'"

Teddy shook his head. "It was a stupid idea." He closed the drawer, and looked at all of the other wardrobes. "She used all of them. Except the wedding dresses. But none of them are about being an Auror." He looked at Victoire. "You can keep the hat, if you like it." He considered offering her the pink hair-wrap as well, but that was too purely Mum's to give away. If they'd all lived in Ancient Egypt - and Ancient Egyptians had worn pink tulle - it undoubtedly would have been buried with her for use in the afterlife, along with her bright green trainers with orange laces (now residing in a box on a shelf in Teddy's room) and her wand (which Teddy was glad had passed to him instead). It might as well have been a lock of her hair, which would be no earthly use to anyone else.

Victoire straightened the hat, then made faces at herself in a small mirror Mum had once put on the side of one of the wardrobes. She smiled over her shoulder at Teddy, and it occurred to him that she really was quite beautiful.

He shook his head sharply. Of course she was beautiful; she was part Veela. She was also Victoire Weasley, nearly a relative, not to mention only a third year, and an annoying one at that.

Except that she hadn't really annoyed Teddy for years.

But that was just from constant exposure. It was too tiring to be annoyed at all of her little tics. That didn't make them less annoying, really, on an objective level.

Of course, there was the matter of watching her fight Greyback as well. She'd kept her head when Teddy had nearly lost his own, and he respected that.

Which was just admiration, like he'd have for a sister, or a cousin, or his own mother, for that matter. She'd earned respect and had got it. It didn't _mean_ anything.

"What are you thinking about?" she asked.

"Stupid ideas," Teddy said. He took one last look at Mum's wardrobes. Maybe he'd find something Auror-like for Ruthless later.

The room went bright as a Patronus swirled and formed on the ceiling and dropped down. It was Granny's - a battered old tomcat with a scarred snout, who she'd once identified to Teddy as Granddad's childhood cat, Dodger. In her voice, it said, "Teddy, if you're still in the basement, please bring up the drinks. The Cooling Charm makes them resist Summoning. And Harry's just got here."

"I'll give you a hand," Victoire said.

Teddy followed her out of the Muggle-room, into the main part of the basement. The drinks were in a wooden crate under the table. Teddy shoved it out, then between them, they hefted it and carried out into the sunny afternoon.

As soon as they emerged with the crate of drinks, James and Al Potter ran up the hill, chattering. Victoire set the crate down and loaded them up with four bottles each, then yelled for her sisters (and Artie) to come take some weight off her hands instead of sitting about like fairies on a Christmas tree. Lily Potter came along with Aimee and Artie, and Teddy divvied out the remaining drinks, then hefted the empty crate onto his own shoulders. Victoire gave him a sarcastic clap, and he raised it up and down like a weight. Lily ran down to the table, set her bottles down, then ran back to Teddy with her arms up.

Teddy handed the crate over to Victoire and squatted down in front of Lily. "I thought you said you were too big for piggy-backs last Christmas."

Lily shook her head emphatically, red pigtails catching the bright afternoon sun. "I'm still very little."

"I don't know..."

" _Please,_ Teddy!"

Teddy feigned consideration, then said, "Well, I suppose, if the price is right."

"What's right?"

"I think two kisses sounds fair."

"All right!" Lily said, and gave him two loud smacks on the cheek, then a third one on the forehead.

"Oh, you get change!" Teddy said, and kissed the top of her head. He turned around and said, "Come on," and a moment later, Lily was securely on his back. He hoisted her up and went down the hill, weaving back and forth to make her laugh. The Maze and Mum's wardrobes and cauldrons of Wolfsbane Potion seemed far away.

When they reached the table, he set her down on the long bench, where Aunt Ginny whisked her up and started trying to get her hair in order, as she'd somehow managed to lose both hair bands in the brief trip down the hill. Al and James had delivered their bottles now and were hunched over a box of chocolate frogs that Ellsworth had brought. Teddy got to them in time to hear James say, "No, it's just Dad. Have you got anyone good?"

Al opened a frog and slid out the card. "Severus Snape. He's my middle name person."

James took the card. "You already have it, Al. You got the first one."

"Oh, right."

The Snape card joined the Uncle Harry card at the bottom of the box. James pulled out another frog. "Oh, this is a good card. Jeremiah Galdreward."

"Who is he?"

"I don't know, but I never saw him before, so he must be good." James turned the card over. "He's some bloke who made quarantine spells when they had plagues and so on."

"Plagues?" Al repeated, impressed.

"Oh, yes," James said confidently. "That's when everybody is sick and most of them die. They're really disgusting, aren't they, Teddy?"

"I never saw one," Teddy said.

"I read about one in Aunt Hermione's book," James said. "It was completely wicked, with blood and sores and teeth falling out. I think some people's _fingers_ fell off."

"Yuck," Al said.

James looked like he was gearing up to go into greater detail on this subject - most of it, in all likelihood, originating in the strange corners of his overactive brain - just as everyone was about to eat, so Teddy decided that sidetracking was in order. "Did I ever tell you about the time Sirius Black single-handedly cured a plague?"

"He did not," James said, leaning forward eagerly for the story.

"Sure he did." Teddy scrambled for a plot. "Why he had to go to... oh, I forget. Al, where did he have to go again?"

Al, who knew this game well, suggested, "Tuvalu!"

"Just so. Good memory. He had to go to Tuvalu to find the famous, er, Healing Hydrangea, so he took Buckbeak and set out for the South Pacific..."

The story got the boys sidetracked from the chocolate frog cards and James's potentially appetite-destroying imagination of a plague, and by the time Sirius had wooed the beautiful island princess to let him into the garden where the magical plant grew, Granny had lunch out.

Uncle Harry took a plate and came over to the bench where Teddy was while James and Al went to get drinks, arguing about whether or not Buckbeak could really fly that far. He sat down. "Interesting story. I think Sirius would like it."

Teddy shrugged. "I reckon he didn't get much time to actually go flying around, so I'd give him a thing or two to do. James and Al know I'm making it up."

"Yes, they do. They do it themselves at home. Much to Phineas Nigellus's annoyance, I'm afraid." He nodded at Victoire. "Your granny noticed the hat. It's one of Tonks's, isn't it?"

Teddy put his hand on his forehead. "I didn't even think about what Granny would think! Oh, damn. I gave it to Victoire, I was looking through Mum's things for a present for Ruthless - something for good luck with her Auror N.E.W.T.s - and I just gave it to her, and I didn't mean to upset Granny, and - "

Uncle Harry held up his hand. "She's not upset. She's glad you're going through Tonks's things. And that hat looks very cute on Victoire. Ginny says that Tonks used to let her play with her clothes sometimes."

"Really."

"Hmm."

Uncle Harry shrugged. "It sounded like a good thing for you to know."

"Yeah. I guess."

They sat together for a few minutes, watching the boys haggle over the last Muggle root beer, then Uncle Harry said, "I'm told I may have to re-think my attitude toward the Department of Mysteries."

"Maybe."

"Andromeda said that Maddie's started training you."

"Just to use something for a test."

"What sort of thing?"

"I don't think I'm allowed to say."

"Naturally." Uncle Harry sighed. "It's very strange. You'll be careful, won't you, Teddy?"

"I thought I'd just rush in there and blow up the Time division."

"That would be deeply unoriginal," Uncle Harry said. "I expect better of you."

"Maybe I'll rip up the Veil and let everyone out."

Uncle Harry's faint smile faded. "You know it's not possible, don't you?"

"Well, maybe if Sirius and I team up to find a Healing Hydrangea..."

"Teddy."

"Yes, Uncle Harry, I know." Teddy turned away, not caring to continue this line of conversation, which never failed to make his stomach churn at the unfairness of the idea. Père Alderman called this wrath, and said that if Teddy were Catholic, he'd be given acts of contrition for it. This had seemed very sensible to Teddy, and he now gave himself such acts every time. For this one, he pulled Lily's plate across the table and started to cut her chicken for her. "What if I could fix _some_ of it, though? What if I could make it so Sirius never went through in the first place?"

"Then you wouldn't grow up knowing that he'd gone through in order to someday stop him from going through."

Teddy ground his teeth.

Uncle Harry put a hand on his shoulder and prodded him to look around. "Listen to me, Teddy. It's all very powerful, but there are things that can't be done. Don't drive yourself crazy."

The smartest thing to do would be to just say "All right" and have done with it. Instead, Teddy shrugged. "Did you catch that wizard you were talking about before? The one who's been Muggle-baiting at the beach?"

Uncle Harry gave him a wary look, then said, "Yes. Turned out he didn't blend in much better than most other pure-bloods would. We caught him wandering around in a purple bathrobe, goggles, and nothing else. The Muggle police had already kindly pulled him aside for us."

"Thoughtful of them."

"Yes, we thought so as well."

"Who was it?"

"I doubt you'd know the name."

"I could always ask Maurice Burke. He could tell me who it is, how I'm related, and how far the bloke is from Muggle ancestors of his own."

Uncle Harry laughed very slightly, and the conversation moved to the more amusing territory of foolish criminals and Ministry nonsense.

The rest of the picnic passed happily. Marie was very excited about starting at Hogwarts, so Teddy and Victoire told her many horrendous lies about what she'd need to worry about. James embellished these lies handily, supplying the Forbidden Forest with something called the "Treasure of Trumbill" and a troupe of ogres that guarded it. Marie took it all in stride. Teddy took her aside and asked her to be kind to Neil, and she reluctantly agreed, though she felt he might make it difficult to have other friends. Artie and Lily practiced cartwheels in the grass, and Teddy's cat, Checkmate, woke up just in time to be fed table scraps in return for simple tricks (Al especially liked getting her to beg and hit his hand with her forepaw). When everyone left, Granny cleared most of the mess by magic, but didn't object when Teddy offered to take over so she could say goodnight to Ellsworth. He took his time, and waited until he actually heard the Disapparition pop before he picked things up to carry them back inside.

He read himself to sleep with one of Mum's tattered old paperbacks ( _Faith's Folly_ , in which an adventurous young witch followed her idiotic lover to South America, where she soon discovered true love with an Inca wizard, and helped him destroy a terrifying serpent who was menacing the village). He drifted off somewhere in chapter eighteen, and found himself flying high above the Andes, going west, the powerful motion of a hippogriff carrying him out over the Pacific. He was heading for Tuvalu, and the mythical Healing Hydrangea. Sirius was in front of him, leaning forward to get as much speed as he could from Buckbeak.

"Great day for flying!" he called back into the slipstream. "But be careful back there! It's a long drop!"

Teddy groaned as dramatically as he could with the wind blowing spit back in streams over his face. "Not you too! Doesn't anyone trust me?"

Sirius laughed wildly and didn't answer, instead urging Buckbeak higher into the sky. The sun seemed very large and warm, and the Pacific was beautiful down below, a perfect blue that looked like the cover of a Fifi LaFolle novel. There were little breaks of white where it crashed merrily against small islands. These white dots seemed to make a pattern - lines and turns and impassable walls.

Teddy looked away from it. It was just his imagination. He gave himself to the joy of the ride, forgetting about Tuvalu and magical plants and everyone worrying about how he couldn't handle the Mysteries. He reveled in the sunshine and the wind, and the sense of freedom in the air.

"Higher!" he urged.

Sirius grinned back at him and pushed Buckbeak into an even higher flight, turning to avoid the sun at the last minute, which wasn't right at all, as one couldn't _really_ fly too close to the sun and -

It happened quickly, nearly as soon as Teddy had put the idea together. The air was suddenly full of feathers and the smell of wax. Buckbeak was gone. Sirius was gone. Teddy was suspended in midair, a wooden framework attached to his shoulders, feathers flying off it madly as the wax melted. He looked down, and the Maze was etched in the ocean below, white foam caps drawing its lines and turns.

"Teddy!" Sirius called from somewhere far away, and then it was Dad's voice, and Mum's, and it didn't matter, because he was falling, falling toward the labyrinth, where the monster waited in the center court, holding a Portkey that would take him to a churchyard, and then back further and further...

He woke with a start, a sharp pain drawing across his cheek. Checkmate was above him, paw raised for another swipe. He ignored the blood on his cheek, and scratched behind her jaw, the way she liked best, until they both fell back into a dreamless sleep.


	5. Surprise!

**Chapter 5:**

 **Surprise!**

After the picnic, the last tattered threads of summer began to unravel.

Teddy unpacked and cleaned his trunk before getting it in order for the year, with his new school books on top and the larger robes Granny had bought for later in the year on the bottom. (He'd got this idea from Victoire, though he didn't care to share that information with her.) Slughorn came for one last brewing lesson, and Professor Longbottom came along to discuss cultivation of the needed plants. He was recently back from his honeymoon, and looked happier than Teddy had ever seen him.

There was a letter from Père Alderman, congratulating Teddy on mastering Wolfsbane Potion and saying that he hadn't really thought Teddy would be stuck with the responsibility on his own quite so quickly. _It's more a baptism by fire than penance at this point, and I feel guilty suggesting it to you,_ he wrote, _but hopefully, you won't be alone for long, and if I could absolve you after a few months of it, I would. As I can't, I hope you'll find absolution on your own and in your own way._ After that, he went on to give Teddy gossip of parts of the pack he hadn't seen - Coral, who'd finally got a Healer's apprenticeship; Martin Hamilton, who was writing a new book that had nothing to do with werewolves; and of course, Vivian Waters, who he claimed was so determinedly cheerful about Professor Longbottom's marriage that her friends were considering putting her into therapy. She and her foster daughter, Celia - a girl Greyback had forced her to infect - were getting along well, and had been joining Père Alderman on so many missions that werewolves around the world assumed she was nun, much to her chagrin, as she was no more Catholic than Teddy was.

Four days before the Hogwarts Express was due to leave, Teddy had all of his friends except Ruthless over to plan her party on board the train. So far, she suspected nothing, largely because, in the frenzy of leaving in each of the last three years, no one had bothered with her birthday before. They met in the basement, which had somehow become Teddy's domain within the house. Frankie Apcarne and Zach Templeton, who were of age now, were putting magical wrappings on everyone's presents and shrinking them into an old valise. Tinny Gudgeon was double-checking the work and making sure everyone's names were attached. Roger Young and Corky Atkinson - who'd taken an early Portkey just to help - were working on games playable on the train. Victoire insisted on taking charge of decorations.

"As long as nothing explodes," Teddy said, unable to decide if this was Victoire Weasley, Brigadier General of the ongoing Hogwarts Prank War, or Victoire Weasley who had always tried, in her admittedly awkward way, to be Ruthless's friend.

"What about fireworks?" Victoire asked. "Uncle George has some new mini-fireworks. They explode, but I think Ruth would like them. What do you think, Donzo?"

Donzo McCormack, who was sitting on a battered old desk picking at his guitar, didn't look up. "As long as they don't explode in her face, I think she'd like it." He played a few bars of a song he'd been writing (he claimed there were no lyrics yet, though he'd been trying to work in rain and fog), then said, "Do you think she'd like me to play?"

"We can't afford you," Maurice Burke said, appearing from upstairs with a plate of sandwiches. "You have to stop the free concerts. You'll go broke. You should be in charge of food, and I'll _buy_ some music to play. Maybe I'll buy that old song you did before school. 'Hopping About,' wasn't it?"

Donzo turned his nose up. "I have no idea what you mean. I'm a _serious artist_. Just ask the _Daily Prophet._ They loved the last one." He poked his cheek out with his tongue.

There was a general snicker, as there had been since Donzo had first released "Into the Gray," a song that had originated during one of Frankie's endless games, when the lot of them had got lost on a foggy moor and had to deal with a serial killer who was hunting there. The _Prophet_ had gone into rhapsodies about Donzo's maturation as an artist, tackling "the existential danger of losing oneself in a world where the markers have disappeared." At first, Donzo had tried to explain the song's genesis, but the reviewer had written it off as "McCormack's trademark self-deprecation."

"So," Teddy said, "against all logic, Donzo is providing food and Maurice is providing music. What am I doing?"

"You have to distract Ruthless," Frankie said.

"Seeing as you're the only one who's ever been able to," Tinny added.

"It's a tough break," Corky said. "You might have to snog her again."

"I suppose I could bear it, if necessary," Teddy said.

Maurice shook his head. "Oh, for God's sake, don't start snogging her. The pair of you will miss the train entirely."

"I'm sure Teddy can think of something else," Victoire said. "They're broken up, after all."

Something not entirely unpleasant turned over in Teddy's stomach. He supposed the thought of snogging Ruthless again was attractive. Perhaps they could get back together. There were not, as far as he knew, any Ruthless Rules that would prohibit it. "I could give her a birthday present," he suggested. "Out on the platform, since of course no one else on board would be getting a present."

"Now, you think of it?" Zach said. "Did we shrink it already?"

"Er... no. I haven't got it yet."

Tinny widened her eyes. "I'd hurry, if I were you, or you can forget snogging of any sort." She gave Frankie a significant look.

Frankie held up his hands in surrender. "I'll get your birthday present before school starts. Really."

Victoire reached into her handbag and tossed an Exploding Earworm at him. "Honestly, Frankie, her birthday's in _February._ " The Earworm exploded and started to play a particularly annoying Weasleys' jingle.

They got the details worked out, and Donzo managed to override Maurice's rule about free concerts ("If I can't play when I feel like it, what's the point?"), as long as they all agreed to keep the door shut so that the whole train wasn't getting free entertainment. Victoire was the last to leave, and she helped Teddy clean up bottles and plates.

"Do you still mean to give Ruth..." She gestured toward the Muggle-room and Mum's wardrobes.

"I still haven't found anything," he said. "But I was just going to get her something normal for her birthday. That was something else."

"Oh."

"What should I get her? I've given her Quidditch things a lot, and her birthday's always right after a trip to Flourish and Blott's, so she has any books she wants. Jewelry's out, and Granny says that clothes are too personal. What did you get?"

"I got her some things to pull short hair back. Mum reckons I was being a bit of a pest, and that Ruth is pretty in her way, and I oughtn't try to make her pretty in anyone else's."

"I wouldn't use that word," Teddy said. "She really doesn't like it."

"What word?"

"Pretty. She nearly hexed Uncle Harry for it once."

"She doesn't want to be told she's pretty?"

"Apparently not."

"You know other girls do, don't you?"

Teddy shrugged. "I judge it on a girl by girl basis." He folded up the table where they'd originally stored the presents. "Here, give me a hand."

Victoire took the other end of the table, and they maneuvered it into the corner, where it lived among the cobwebs. Teddy turned and found himself only inches from Victoire, and she was still very pretty. And still very thirteen, and still very much part of his family. Odd thoughts about her hair and her china blue eyes would only lead to trouble, not to mention very uncomfortable Christmases. He drew away and said, "Well, thanks for helping out. I know you and Ruthless don't get along all that well, so I appreciate it."

"I don't get along with her, but I like her perfectly well."

Teddy didn't even try to make sense of that.

The next day, he Flooed into London and spent several desperate hours in Diagon Alley, looking for a decent birthday present. He considered a cat - Ruthless had no pet of her own and doted on Checkmate - but getting a pet for someone who wasn't expecting one was always a stupid idea, even though he knew she would love a particularly rambunctious ginger tom that he saw at the Magical Menagerie. He decided to just owl her and tell her about him, and let her decide for herself. Which still left him without a present for her. She was just too self-sufficient to make present buying easy. She always seemed to have everything she needed.

In desperation, he finally went to Weasleys', where George steered him to a whole new line of portable daydreams, these action-based and exciting. Teddy bought three of them. He got a discount for first helping George stock standard Muggles and Minions equipment, then develop new lines of toys based on it. He also got a small percent of the money George made on the latter, which was deposited into a vault Granny had got for him at Gringotts. She wouldn't give him the key until he came of age, though.

Now all that was left was the other present, the one that didn't really belong at a party. He got home in the late afternoon and went back to the basement, where he started going through the other six wardrobes, looking for something, anything, that would look like a good gift from an experienced Auror to someone just starting on the path.

The shadows were getting quite long when he heard a rap on the edge of the door. Granny was standing there, a quizzical look on her face. "What are looking for, Teddy?"

Teddy sighed and closed the door of the third wardrobe. "I don't even know," he said, and told her what he'd meant to do. "I'm sorry," he said. "It's all Mum's stuff, anyway, and I shouldn't - "

But Granny was smiling. She held up her hand. "Wait here," she said.

Distracting Ruthless turned out not to be quite as easy as Teddy had anticipated.

First, the Scrimgeours had actually made it to the platform nearly fifteen minutes before Teddy. This was unprecedented - the Scrimgeours had five children, and were always behind. This had developed a tendency to plan to leave early which usually led to leaving only a bit late, but apparently, this morning, the twins had been exceptionally well-behaved, and the family had managed to get breakfast and get out of the Leaky Cauldron by nine-thirty. Teddy's plan to wait for her had been ruined before Granny found a place to park.

Second, Ruthless had been in charge of keeping her younger brothers in order, and was cross and looking forward to sitting down. She also seemed anxious to talk to Teddy about something, and the most logical place to do so was on the train.

Third, the birthday present had taken all of a minute, as there wasn't exactly personal space for thank yous. It had also led to a rather pained look on her face that made Teddy too nervous about just what she meant to tell him to effectively steer the conversation. The other present - the one Granny had found - wasn't part of the party, and certainly wasn't meant to be given on a crowded platform, so it stayed in Teddy's book bag.

Fourth, he'd nearly forgotten that he was meant to be a prefect. It was hardly an honor, as he was the only Gryffindor in his year, but it had required a sudden rearrangement of priorities, as nearly half of Teddy's year had, by necessity, become prefects, and Donzo and Corky were running around madly trying to get the other prefects to meet at the party instead of in their own compartment. This was inordinately stressful, and for the first time since his first year, Teddy wished that he'd had several dormitory mates, and one of them had been chosen instead.

Finally, he'd neglected to plan for his own family. Uncle Harry had brought James, Al, and Lily along to say goodbye for the year. Teddy was glad to see them, but flummoxed as to what to do with them, or even with Granny, while trying to keep Ruthless from boarding the train. Letting Al push the luggage trolley while James carried Checkmate hadn't kept them occupied for long, and Teddy's usual goodbyes with Uncle Harry and Granny didn't quite work when part of his mind was already with his friends at school.

It was James who finally saved the day, poking around with his usual level of nosiness. He discovered a new basket sitting among Ruthless's things, which contained the ginger kitten Teddy had seen in Diagon Alley. Ruthless brightened immediately.

"Teddy spotted him for me," she said. "I went as soon as we came down here. I never had my own cat before."

"What's his name?" James asked.

"I haven't thought of one yet. I've mostly called him 'Cat.' What do you think? You always name cats for your stories."

James puffed up considerably at the knowledge that Ruthless had actually read his cat stories, and took a long, serious look at the kitten, narrowing his eyes and pursing his lips. Finally, he said, "Ogden."

Ruthless looked surprised. "Ogden?"

"Yeah. I was thinking about fire, and then Firewhiskey, and then Old Ogden's."

"Hmm." Ruthless scooped the sleeping kitten up and looked at his face. "Ogden. Do you like that, Moggie Oggie? Oggie-Oggie-in-for-free?"

The kitten half-opened his eyes, licked his whiskers drowsily, and then flopped his head down on the side of Ruthless's hand.

"I think he likes it," Ruthless said. "Ogden it is. Thanks, Potter."

James looked even more pleased at being called "Potter" than at having named the cat.

The Hogwarts Express sounded its horn and a magically amplified voice called out, "All aboard! All Hogwarts students aboard!"

Lily, who'd been cheerfully petting the sleeping Checkmate, put her hands over her ears and began to cry, and Teddy nearly lost Ruthless in the crowd while he was trying to comfort a disconsolate five-year-old. (Al finally won the day by promising her the use of his brand new box of Metamorphmarkers when they all got home.) Luckily, Granny and Uncle Harry stopped Ruthless with irritating questions about her future while her family got her brothers' belongings to the train, so Teddy was able to keep an eye on her, and was the one who finally walked her to the train, their luggage trolleys bumping companionably against each other. He didn't know if Victoire had managed to finish her decorations yet, as the Weasleys had a first-year to see off as well, but if she hadn't, it was probably too late. There were only so many ways to distract Ruthless once they were actually on the train, and -

Ruthless stopped as soon as they'd actually made it into the narrow corridor. They were among the last on board, and only a few people gave her dirty looks as they maneuvered their own trunks toward compartments. "Teddy, I need to talk to you," she said.

Teddy's stomach rolled over. "What? Is something wrong? Are you... well, not that you shouldn't, we're broken up, but are you going out with - "

She held up her hand. "No. I just... well, there are new rules."

"More Ruthless Rules?"

She smiled, but only a little bit. "I barely made my Potions O.W.L., and you know perfectly well that our little tutoring sessions weren't very useful."

"Well, that wasn't - "

"Teddy." She sighed. "You're very distracting. I'd much rather snog you than work. And I need to work, so..." She raised her eyebrows hopefully. "Do you know what I'm saying?"

Teddy shook his head.

"I'm saying that the new rule is, none of our usual nonsense. They're not taking a lot of Aurors, as there aren't all that many Dark wizards anymore, and if I'm to make it, I have to do well with my N.E.W.T.s. I'm going to keep up with Quidditch - it's good for me to stay in shape - but no boys. Absolutely no boys." She shook her head, and Teddy thought she was mostly talking to herself. " _Especially_ no Teddy Lupin. You're worse than firewhiskey when it comes to fogging up my brain."

"Even as friends?" Teddy asked, incredulous. "We've always been friends, I won't snog you if you don't want me to snog you, I - "

"Of course we're friends. But no..." She shrugged. "You know what the rule is about, Lupin."

Teddy yanked his trunk too hard to get it moving again, and tripped several feet down the corridor. He didn't really feel like attending a birthday party just now, but it was too late to go back on it.

Ruthless followed. "Teddy, it's not you, it's just these damned classes, I've been going through the books..."

Teddy stopped, thinking of the book that was currently wrapped and waiting for her. He debated not giving it to her after all - he'd spent all night up wondering if he'd be able to - but in the end, it might even be better if they weren't going out. It was a _tradition_ he was giving her, not a box of chocolates, and it wasn't even his own tradition to decide on. Besides, she was still his friend. "I know. And I really didn't mean to get back together. It was just an idea. Probably a stupid one."

She looked at him timidly, a look so out of place on Ruthless Scrimgeour's face that it took him a long time to recognize it. Then she forced a smile and said, "Yes, it's very stupid, Lupin. I mean, you know you've no shot with me at all. I just can't stand you."

"Right," Teddy said, trying to go along. "And you're boring and ugly, so why would I bother?"

"That's the spirit."

They looked carefully at each other, then Teddy rolled his eyes and started moving his trunk again. By the time they reached the door where Frankie had put up a picture of a tree - the sign for the Forest Guard, the name he'd given his group of friends before Teddy had even arrived at Hogwarts - they were joking about classes and Professor Longbottom's wedding. Teddy let her ahead of him to open the door, and when everyone inside yelled "Surprise!" she seemed genuinely pleased.

The party turned out to be a great success, and Frankie lamented not having thought of it years ago to pass the time between London and Hogsmeade. Donzo played every song that Ruthless enjoyed, and Victoire had outdone herself with festive decorations. Marie jumped right in, dancing with everyone, and when Teddy retrieved Neil Overby - who he'd gone looking for after an hour and found hiding in a crowd and not talking to anyone - she pulled him into a dance they did in the werewolf sanctuary, and he relaxed. A little bit. Teddy began to look forward to arriving at Hogwarts, to the Sorting Feast and the Sorting Song, and the smoke figures he would see of his parents. It was the only time he saw their images that everyone else could see them as well, and he meant to point them out to Neil and Marie.

When the train arrived at Hogsmeade Station, Teddy and the other fifth year prefects (Honoria Higgs and Corky from Slytherin, Lizzie Richardson and Donzo from Ravenclaw, and Roger and Tinny from Hufflepuff) were expected to come out and help corral the first years, so he had to be separated from Ruthless and the others, though she promised to save him "at least a little bit of food." They got the eleven-year-olds arranged in boats, surreptitiously directing the frightened ones toward Hagrid, who made a fuss over them and promised to have them in for tea. Teddy put Neil in a boat with several shy-looking boys who didn't seem very threatening, and Marie in a boat full of rowdy girls. When this was done, they took the thestral-drawn carriages up to the castle. Honoria regaled them all with tales of her summer in Greece, where she had apparently spent the whole time catching up on British gossip. Teddy learned more about the comings and goings of Gregory Goyle than he'd ever wondered about, and ascertained that his cousin, Draco Malfoy, was planning to make some sort of political bid. Honoria opined that this was foolish, as it would only bring his Death Eater past up.

The carriage rolled to a stop on the road in front of the castle. Teddy could hear the lake sloshing quietly on its shores, and see the moonlight reflecting on the White Tomb. The Red Caps who had overrun the place after the last battle had finally gone back into hibernation - or whatever state they were in when they weren't manifesting - and it all seemed the same as ever.

Teddy climbed down from the carriage, patted the thestral's neck, and led the way inside.

There weren't as many first years as there had been in Victoire's year - the real boom after the war; they slept eight or nine to a dormitory in many cases - but it was still a good-sized group, at least by Teddy's standards. He counted fifty. Marie Weasley and the girls from her boat had already started a conversation of some sort, and Professor Longbottom kept glancing at them in an irritated way as he led them up. Neil Overby stood in the middle of the line, his shoulders hunched, trying to be invisible. There was another redhead a few people behind Marie, a curly-haired boy with a flat face, who Teddy recognized as Ruthless's second brother, Keith. Next year, it would be the twins - for one year, all five Scrimgeour children would be at Hogwarts.

Ruthless was not looking forward to this, or at least claimed not to be. This didn't prevent her from watching the procession with a craned neck. Her other brother, Kirk, was doing the same from the other side of the table, and as Keith passed, they gave him a silent cheer. He returned it. Teddy waved to Neil, but Neil didn't notice. Marie did, and dropped a little curtsy as she walked. Victoire stood on the bench and held up two pairs of crossed fingers. Professor Longbottom gestured to her to get down.

The Sorting Hat was sitting in its accustomed place on the old stool, its tip going back and forth eagerly, like it was looking at the approaching first years. The rip near its brim opened, and it sang:

 _It's time to hear my story,  
of ages in the past,  
When Hogwarts school was newly built -  
Who knew if it would last?_

Teddy tuned out for the part of the song that was the early history of Hogwarts. He knew the story as well as anyone, and the Hat's version was usually pretty scant. He looked at the candles above, watching them as the song moved into the praise of the Houses, waiting for the third movement, the war memorial, when the candles would be extinguished, and the smoke figures would float above their House tables. He wouldn't be able to show Marie and Neil this year - it had been stupid to think that; the song always came before the Sorting - but he could still see them for himself. For the last four years, Dad's form had shown up close to where Teddy was, though it wasn't clear that this was anything more than a coincidence.

The Hat finished up the praise of Slytherin ( _You'll be at home in Slytherin / If you want to prove yourself_ ), and he braced himself for the darkness that would fall on the Great Hall at any moment.

The Hat continued singing.

 _The Founders gave their minds to me  
to Sort when they were gone  
To find the rightful places  
Of each daughter and each son._

 _Now you've come to join the school  
And long to find your way -  
The brave, the loyal, wise, or shrewd -  
Try me on, and I will say!_

The song ended; the Hat took a bow.

There was silence, then a solitary clap from the Ravenclaw table. Another joined it, then another.

Teddy blinked.

No candles had gone out.

No smoke figures had appeared.

Across the table, Victoire was clapping, but looked confused. Ruthless gave Teddy an anxious look.

Professor Longbottom picked up the scroll and read, "Adams, Belvina."

Belvina Adams, a brunette nearly as skinny as the long plait going down her back, perched on the chair like a bird, and after a moment, the Hat announced that she was a _"GRYFFINDOR!"_ Around Teddy, the other Gryffindors broke into applause at getting the first of the first years.

Ruthless leaned over as Professor Longbottom moved on to _Bergstrom, Laurence._ "What's going on? Where are they?"

Teddy bit his lip. "I suppose... well, last year was the fifteenth time. It started when I was, well... zero... and now, I guess it figured fifteen times was enough. I mean..." He shrugged, trying not to express any disappointment; he didn't like the way both Ruthless and Victoire seemed to expect him to start wailing. "They couldn't very well do it forever, could they? Otherwise, we'd still be seeing people from the goblin wars."

Victoire shook her head. "Still, it's - "

"It's fine," Teddy said. "I want to watch Neil be Sorted."

As Professor Longbottom was still only on "Carrow, Abigail" (Teddy could see Maurice edging over, probably to discuss the pitfalls of an unfortunate last name, as she was Sorted into _HUFFLEPUFF!_ ), missing Neil Overby's Sorting wasn't really a concern, but Teddy didn't care to continue the conversation. Of _course_ it had needed to end. And it would be arbitrary. It wasn't as though Teddy was the only person affected by the war, so the Hat wasn't going to schedule its memorials to his time in school. Fifteen was a good, round, arbitrary number of times.

It was nothing personal.

And he had many other ways to connect to Mum and Dad, better ways.

"Flourish, Edward."

 _"RAVENCLAW!"_

Something nudged him, and he saw Victoire emerging from under the table to take the space on his other side, as it would afford her a better view of the first years. Teddy wasn't sure if she was doing it to wish her sister well, or to scope out new recruits. She smiled at him faintly and said, "I sort of miss it. It was always very nice."

Teddy nodded.

 _Marshall, Samuel_ became a Gryffindor, and the table cheered again, so there was no further talk. After Samuel, _Morgan, Elliot_ went to Slytherin and _Norris, Elizabeth_ seemed dazed with happiness at becoming a Ravenclaw. Then Professor Longbottom said, "Overby, Neil."

Neil, who had been hiding in the midst of a knot of boys, shuffled out to the stool. He lifted his eyes briefly to the crowd, and Teddy heard a student somewhere at the Gryffindor table say, "Wasn't that the boy from, you know, when Greyback was out?" Words at the other tables couldn't be heard as clearly, but from the general buzz of conversation, Teddy guessed that other people might have recognized the name. The attack on Neil's family had, after all, been front page news only two years ago.

Neil looked down at his feet and grabbed the Hat. He held onto it with both hands, then Professor Longbottom leaned down and said something to him. Neil gulped, and put the Hat on his head. It slid down over his nose, and wriggled back and forth for a very long time. Teddy could see Neil's mouth moving, but couldn't make out any sound.

Finally, the Hat called out, _"SLYTHERIN!"_

The cheer wasn't exactly deafening, but to Teddy's great relief, Corky stood up and said, "All right! Take that, Lupin, _we_ got him!"

Professor Longbottom made a small show of discouraging this, but Teddy could tell that he was also relieved as the Slytherins laughed fondly, then made room for Neil at the table. Neil didn't look like he knew what to do with himself. Corky continued to make a great fuss over him, and Honoria Higgs - undoubtedly thinking of a smashing headline for the first issue of the _Charmer_ \- sidled over and began to welcome him as well.

The crowd of first years was thinning, and Teddy could feel Ruthless leaning forward eagerly. He looked over to see her biting her lip as _Scrimgeour, Keith_ went to the stool. Keith looked over toward her - and toward Kirk, Teddy supposed - then pulled the Hat on confidently. To the surprise of no one, he was declared a GRYFFINDOR! without any millinery debate. The group was down to five. Victoire grabbed Teddy's hand and squeezed, then looked at him like she was surprised and let go. "Come on, Marie," she whispered as Professor Longbottom called for _Weasley, Marie._

Marie, who'd been chatting with a bespectacled boy, held up her hand as if only pausing for a moment's inconsequential interruption, then went to the Hat. She picked it up and smiled, then put it on. Her light red curls seemed to buoy it up, and - though there was a long conversation - from the frequent grins on her face, Teddy guessed she was just being chatty. When it ended, the Hat named her a GRYFFINDOR as well, and she came over to the table and looked for a seat as if she were just dropping in for lunch, somewhere in the middle of her fourth year. Victoire rolled her eyes, then went to sit with her.

In the end, Gryffindor gained seven girls and seven boys. For the first time since Teddy had arrived, Gryffindor had the largest number of first years. The old Gryffindor families, he supposed, were recovering. Soon, Weasleys of all stripes would again be crowding the Tower, and the Potters would join them. The Scrimgeours were already back, and the Jordans were waiting in the wings.

Soon, it would be as if the war had never happened at all, except in some triumphal story of long, long ago, and the dead would be nothing but questions on the end of Binns' tests.

Headmistress Sprout stood up and raised her goblet, smiling pleasantly to the students. "Welcome to Hogwarts," she said. "There are a few announcements, all of them quite nice this year. While we will miss Professor Slughorn of Slytherin, he is taking a well-deserved retirement, and, Professor Vector will take over as Slytherin's Head of House."

Teddy applauded, though few others did. The wispy witch who was nodding from the High Table had taught Arithmancy for years, and most students thought of this as something between the Cruciatus Curse and a particularly nasty Knock-Out Concoction. Few of them knew Vector very well, and she, as one of the rare Muggle-born Slytherins, had examined her options and decided that a year abroad was called for at the time the heroes were being made. Teddy liked her despite this. It was hard to argue with the logic, unless you were either a Gryffindor or Nymphadora Lupin, née Tonks.

Sprout also applauded politely, then said, "Until the Potions post can be permanently filled, we are happy to welcome Professor Cho Morse."

She gestured to Cho, who stood up and gave a very pretty smile. Teddy could see Daniel beside her, a very large talisman sewn into the front of a Muggle suit. The Ravenclaw table applauded wildly; Cho Chang was in the company of Luna Scamander, Kingsley Shacklebolt, and Professor Flitwick in their House roster of heroes. During the final battle - at least according to Donzo - she had taken to her broomstick and used the skills acquired as a longtime Quidditch Seeker snatch weapons from invading giants and strike back at them with deadly accuracy, at one point saving the whole of the north tower from a catastrophic strike that would have sent Trelawney's classroom crashing down into the midst of the battle, on top of nearly a hundred dueling wizards and witches.

The Headmistress waited for the applause to die down. "Professor Morse's husband, er... is it 'Doctor'?"

Daniel nodded.

" _Doctor_ Morse," Sprout said firmly, "will also be on the premises. He is a Muggle Healer, and Madam Pomfrey has persuaded him to offer lectures on that particular art, as well as sharing his techniques with her. This is a unique opportunity for those of us born into the Wizarding world, and it is quite generous of Dr. Morse to offer it." She looked around sternly, catching the eyes, particularly, of several Hufflepuffs. Teddy spoke Hufflepuff well enough to know that she was saying, "Under no circumstances are these lectures to be unattended."

There was actually an interested buzz of conversation at this; Roger Young's column on all things Muggle had created an appetite for knowledge of this sort. Teddy wasn't worried about Daniel lecturing to an empty hall.

Sprout looked around. "We are fortunate to have several young people on our staff, and for the first time in many years, the family quarters are being used. Please congratulate our own Professor Longbottom for his recent marriage."

The clapping was deafening this time; Professor Longbottom was wildly popular.

Sprout smiled and waited for it to die down naturally. He had been one of her favorite students, and he'd married a Hufflepuff, to boot. "I hope you will all welcome Mrs. Longbottom."

Hannah, who'd nearly been hiding behind Neville, stood up timidly, and seemed to be knocked back into her chair by a renewal of the applause. She had recently bought the Leaky Cauldron, and Teddy had no idea how she would deal with the crowds there once she finished the renovations she was doing and re-opened (for now, a series of low-ranking Ministry officials were keeping an eye on the Diagon Alley entrance).

Sprout laughed fondly. "Very well; I see Mrs. Longbottom is welcome. In other announcements, the Forbidden Forest remains Forbidden, new additions to Mr. Filch's list of prohibited items have been posted on the library door, and Quidditch tryouts will begin in the second week of the term; see your House captains if you are interested. Miss Higgs of Slytherin has also informed me that our fine Hogwarts newspaper, _The Charmer_ , plans to begin its rigorous weekly schedule this very week, and those interested in reporting, taking pictures, or otherwise contributing, should see her immediately. Anyone else interested in starting a school activity, please see your Heads of House for the proper procedure. There are no further announcements, and no particular warnings, so without further ado, I would like you all to thank Winky and the Hogwarts kitchen elves for the feast you're about to enjoy." She waved her wand, lighting up the corner, where the house elves were waiting in an ecstasy of nervousness about being seen. Winky, at their head, gave a shaky curtsy as the students gave them the loudest cheer yet, then ordered everyone back down to the kitchens. They left with palpable relief, and a moment later, the empty plates on the tables filled with every food Teddy liked to eat.

The feast was cheerful, and after three treacle tarts, a plate full of roast beef and piled with potatoes, and half a pitcher of pumpkin juice, Teddy's discontent was more than muted. He stood at the end of it to join the other Gryffindor prefects in leading everyone up to the Tower, and managed a joke about having to make do a prefect short this year. The castle elves had been busy during the feast, and Teddy found his room clean and warm, his trunk pushed cozily against the wall, Checkmate beginning to stir from her enchanted nap. He curled his fingers into the fur on the nape of her neck, and she purred drowsily.

His book bag was hanging over the back of a chair, and he took it to his bed to open it. It might, he thought, have been packed by an ancient Celt warrior. This morning seemed at least that long ago.

But there was something else he meant to do tonight, a gift he intended to give. Granny had known immediately, and seemed genuinely happy to know what to do with it.

It was nothing special to look at, just a book, a study guide to Defense Against the Dark Arts N.E.W.T.s. It wasn't even up to date. Mum had got it from Mad-Eye Moody; Moody had got it from his own mentor, an Auror called Forrester; Forrester had got it from his mentor, Xavier Prewett - a classmate of Albus Dumbledore. It may have had an owner before Prewett, or even two - the date in the front of the book was eighteen-twenty - but Teddy had no way to know, as there were no names in it, only the memory of passing from student to teacher. In a happier world, Mum might have passed it on to Uncle Harry, and he might eventually have given it to Ruthless anyway. Or maybe Mum would have held onto it longer and passed it on to Ruthless herself.

Everyone who had owned the book had jotted notes here and there. Some had included jokes, or potion recipes. There was a scribbled design for a Dark detector that had never been developed; Teddy guessed this was Mad-Eye's. Mum had written in a cheerful purple ink, her round, even handwriting noting various things she'd learned from Granddad's Muggle psychology books. She'd also drawn a butterfly that flew up and down the margin of page eighty-three, alighting now and then on a diagram of a Yorkshire crime scene, where a mad potion-brewer had bled a pure-blood woman in an attempt to give magical power to his Muggle lover. (It hadn't worked, of course, but Mum had written in the top margin - in the last year of her life - _Is this where Umbridge is taking this mad "magic-stealing" notion from?_ )

It would never have come to Teddy if Mum were alive. He was her son, not her student, not even a would-be apprentice in the Auror division. But he'd found the idea of giving up that one fluttering purple butterfly more difficult than he'd expected, so he'd sat by her wardrobes for a long time last night, morphing aimlessly into the mirrors, thinking of her, using the talent she _had_ bequeathed to him, wishing she were here to tell him about all the other things she'd given him. He'd finally fallen asleep and dreamed of her, but as she told him exactly what he'd been telling himself she'd say, he wasn't sure if it was one of his particularly unusual dreams or not.

He'd wrapped the book this morning in the paper Granny had kept it in, tied with a simple string.

"I'm going to do it, Mum," he said.

She didn't answer.

Teddy raised his wand and sent his Patronus out to Ruthless, asking her to meet him downstairs in the Common Room. The Patronus communication might be meant for emergencies, but, in Teddy's opinion, did just as great a service in communicating with friends who happened to live in a booby-trapped dormitory, or just in other Houses altogether. He'd taught it to his friends last year, and only a few seconds later, Ruthless's fox dropped from the ceiling and told him that she was on her way. He took the book, scratched Checkmate between the ears, and went downstairs to wait.

The Common Room wasn't entirely deserted, and the good spots by the fire were all taken, so Teddy staked out a quiet corner at a study table. Ruthless spotted him when she came downstairs, and came over.

"What is it?" she asked, looking only vaguely curious.

Teddy brought out the package and set it on the table between them. "This isn't a birthday present," he said. "It's... well, it's a good luck present, for your Auror N.E.W.T.s. It's from Mum. Sort of. It was hers."

Ruthless's face lost its vagueness, and her light brown eyes grew sharp. "Teddy, I couldn't take something like that."

Teddy shoved the package across. "Yes, you can. It's not a family thing. It's an Auror thing." As he told her the history of it, he saw her eyes go to it, caressing it. He finished, and bit his lip.

She pulled it toward her and undid the string, letting the paper fall away. She opened it slowly. Teddy leaned over and turned to page eighty-three. "That's Mum's butterfly," he said. "I guess she got bored studying."

Ruthless touched the butterfly, her face tight and unreadable.

Teddy swallowed hard. "Do you like it?"

She picked the book up, closed it, and held it against her heart. "I like it very much, Teddy." Suddenly, she threw her arms around him (he could feel the book's corner pressing against his neck) and kissed his cheek, then, after a moment's hesitation, his mouth.

Teddy kissed her back, then pulled away. "I thought you said none of that this year."

She blinked rapidly, swallowed hard, and found a shaky smile. Her warm hand was resting on his cheek. "Well, classes don't actually start until tomorrow, do they?"

Teddy took her hand. "No. I don't suppose they do."


	6. Tar and Feathers

**Chapter 6:**

 **Tar and Feathers**

Teddy was tired for his morning classes, but he didn't mind. He and Ruthless had stayed up past midnight, eventually falling into a long, pleasant conversation about the future and what they wanted to do. It hadn't been anything especially personal - they hadn't talked about what they might be doing _together_ \- but sitting on the sofa, tugging her curls softly and watching them bounce back into their tight little corkscrews, occasionally kissing one pale cheek, Teddy had felt safe and cared for, and he thought Ruthless had felt the same. This morning, she'd been back to business, her nose in her school books. She took time to give him one apologetic smile, and he shrugged, and that was that. They were apart for the year. But it was all right.

"Do you need supervising, Lupin?" Donzo asked as soon as the Charms class got chaotic and Flitwick was occupied with trying to explain something to Geoffrey Phillips (Teddy had the impression that it was about some security spells Geoffrey had found in his reading, but couldn't quite bring himself to care). Franklin Driscoll, the third Ravenclaw boy, had quietly made his way over to the girls, Connie Deverill and Lizzie Richardson, and the three of them were now conspicuously involved in the series of simple Charms Flitwick had assigned to warm them up for the year, and no one was paying the slightest bit of attention to Teddy or Donzo.

Teddy Muffled the conversation anyway. "I promised McGonagall that I wouldn't work alone."

Donzo looked alarmed. "I thought you said she thought you were just studying Animagus _theory_."

"Of course she does. But she made a point of mentioning it, anyway. Just in case." He smiled. "Never underestimate McGonagall."

"All the Gryffindors say that."

"And we're all quite right." Teddy noticed Flitwick looking over and made several feathers do a tango on his desk. "Are you free at midnight? Restricted section?"

"I'll be there."

"Can you get there without getting caught, or do you want me to come for you?"

"With the...?" Donzo grinned. Teddy had introduced him to the Marauder's Map during his first forays into the Animagus spell, and he was, so far, the only one who'd shown what Teddy considered a proper level of interest in it. "Let's do it that way. Maybe they'll insult me again."

"Good, then," Teddy said. "Thinking of... theory... did you want to give it a try this year?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Well - in theory - I have a feeling I'd end up something quite silly. I couldn't live with the shame if I worked for a year, then turned into a grasshopper or something and got stepped on by a passing house elf."

"You usually turn into your Patronus. I doubt anyone's going to accidentally step on a raccoon."

Donzo didn't look convinced, and Teddy decided to let it be. He'd rather hoped his friends would like the idea of becoming Animagi, but they seemed content to "supervise" Teddy's own experiments instead. Flitwick came over to check on them, broke the Muffling spell, and set them back to work on what they were actually meant to be doing.

After Charms, Teddy had Divination, which - in his year - was shared by all the students who wanted to take it, regardless of House. Professor Trelawney had taken over the O.W.L. students, as Firenze's teaching methods were less than useful when it came to Ministry requirements of Divination students, since he didn't teach crystal scrying, astrology, tea leaves, or any of the methods students were expected to be familiar with. Trelawney took this as evidence of the superiority of her own preferences; Firenze took it as proof that his preferences were truly important, as opposed to "mere test practice." Either way, Teddy found himself in the North Tower, prodding a recalcitrant crystal ball and thinking that the Daedalus Maze was better than any method he'd learned from _either_ Divination teacher.

The first lunch back at school was a more exuberant celebration than the Sorting Feast, as students were free to behave as they normally would. Teddy roved from table to table, finally alighting at Slytherin to ask Neil about his first day. Neil seemed too overwhelmed to talk for long. To Teddy's dismay, he was sitting with Maurice and Corky instead of with other first years - he'd hoped that a day of classes would prove to Neil that he'd fit in with his classmates - but he seemed happy nonetheless. He told Teddy about the glowing green stones in the dormitory walls, and about Honoria wanting to interview him (Honoria herself leaned over and said, "It would _lead_ , Neil! You'd be famous!"), and about a care package he'd got from Nate and Evvie in France. He leaned over anxiously and asked when he'd have to start taking "the you-know-what," and Teddy promised to check the calendar.

After lunch, Teddy walked down to Defense Against the Dark Arts with the Slytherins. Maurice had already started worrying about his marks in the subject, and Corky assured him that he would fail, and miserably, and be denounced as a would-be Dark wizard in front of the whole community. Honoria stuck closer than she usually did, and kept saying things like, "Corin, that's a terrible thing to say!", which was a bit rich, coming from Honoria. Brendan Lynch and Jane Hunter walked together a few feet behind Teddy's group. They were holding hands, though Jane didn't look especially happy about it.

Professor Robards was writing on the blackboard when they got in, using a Blurring Jinx to conceal it until he was ready to show it, and he waved them to their chairs. Teddy took his accustomed seat up front between Corky and Maurice, took out his book, and waited.

Robards finally finished writing, and turned to the class, smiling. "Well. O.W.L. year. Welcome."

"Thanks," Corky said brightly. "Glad to be here."

"Actually, I hope you will be," Robards said. "Your classes are so small this year, I'd like to try something new. If it seems not to be working, it's a lot easier to backpedal with fifteen students than with forty. Are you all willing to be an experiment?"

"Will we get what we need for our O.W.L.s?" Brendan asked.

"You already have what you need for the O.W.L.s," Robards said. "I expect more of you than the Ministry does. You'll all sail through." He looked around, then shook his head. "Yes, you'll get O.W.L. review. But what I'd really like to do is get you to understand this on a visceral level, to experience the process of dealing with Dark magic. So" - he pulled a box out from under his desk with great aplomb - "I've brought some friends." He held the box out to Teddy.

Teddy looked at it. "What... er...?"

"Take a slip of parchment. Don't look at it yet."

Tentatively, Teddy pulled a piece of parchment from the box, and Robards moved on around the room, giving slips to the other students.

When he'd finished, Robards went back to the front of the room. "All right. I've just given each of you the name of an historical Dark witch or wizard. They were not captured during their lifetimes."

"What are we meant to do with them?" Jane asked.

"Find them, of course," Robards said.

Teddy raised his eyebrows. "You want us to do a job Aurors couldn't do?"

"I want you to spend a year thinking like Aurors. Understanding how to approach the problem. I don't expect you to solve them, though it wouldn't surprise me - it's an interesting fact that it's sometimes easier to find someone when the need is less pressing, and all of you are quite capable. Your mark won't depend on it, but you'll need to use what you've learned in all of your years here."

"If our mark doesn't depend on it," Honoria said, "then is there some reason to do it?"

"What do you mean?"

"She means," Jane said, "is there anything in it for us?"

Robards sighed, and rolled his eyes dramatically. "I momentarily forgot which class this was. Perhaps you'd like the satisfaction of a job well done? Or a certificate of some sort?" His eyes were twinkling. "Or... oh, I don't know. A week over the summer without the Trace for anyone who succeeds?"

"Can that be done?" Maurice asked.

"I've cleared it with Hermione Weasley, and she's cleared it with the Wizengamot. If you catch your quarry, you may choose one week, and the Trace will be temporarily lifted."

This struck Teddy as a particularly good prize. Most of them cheated anyway, at least if they were surrounded by magical people, but the idea of a week being treated as an adult was attractive. The Slytherins all seemed to be weighing it.

Maurice finally shrugged, looked at his parchment, and said, "I'll just ask Mr. Borgin at Christmas. They probably all karked it in the shop. Maybe I'll bring back" - he read the name on his parchment - "Miss Earmbana's fingernails."

Robards laughed. "I wish you better luck than the Aurors had with him."

"We can _ask_ people?" Honoria cut in. "I'll ask Rita. She knows where a lot of bodies are buried."

"And you think she'll let the _Charmer_ scoop her again?"

"Wait a minute," Jane said. "This is hardly fair. I'm Muggle-born. I've no such resource!"

"Me, either," Corky said, but didn't seem too fussed about it as he read his parchment. "I mean, not Muggle-born, but I don't know anyone."

"Mr. Lupin," Robards said. "Why is it fair?"

Teddy felt quite unfairly put on the spot, but knew Robards well enough to know the answer: "Different resources."

"Exactly. Miss Hunter, has it occurred to you that any one of these wizards might have disappeared into the Muggle world, where you've had more access to historical records than any of us? Or that the answer might be in a puzzle you could solve, or an experiment you might do? Miss Higgs and Mr. Burke imagine interviewing witnesses - or at least people of interest - but that's not how you tend to approach things. What would Jane Hunter do? I'm actually quite eager to see what you'll do with this."

"Examine evidence," Jane said firmly. "But we don't have evidence, just what you wrote."

"That tells you what the evidence was."

"But it's not the actual evidence. You can get trace elements off the actual..." Jane trailed off. "Oh, I see. Well... as you were an Auror, could I get the evidence on Madam Blottsponge from wherever you keep it?"

While Jane and Robards negotiated the finer points of her upcoming investigation, Teddy looked at the piece of parchment in his hand. There was a picture of a madly grinning wizard who seemed to be missing several teeth. His name was apparently Roderick Brimmann, and he'd been an actual pirate, as opposed to the romantic sorts of creatures in Mum's old paperbacks. Brimmann had never mastered Disapparition, but he'd had a talent for commandeering anything that moved, from carpets to brooms to, most frequently, Muggle ships. He'd tried for years to get one to fly, largely for the purpose of terrorizing potential Muggle victims. He never succeeded at much more than a low hover, but that was quite enough to start rumors of a "demon ship" in the 1600s. He'd dealt in Muggle slaves and stolen goods, sometimes raiding slave ships to take their slaves into the Wizarding world. Aurors at the time had been just behind him on an island of the west coast of Africa, and had found the remains of a truly debauched party. He had disappeared for good not long after it, sailing into Bermuda's then-new Wizarding shipping lanes (which had caused endless trouble for both the Muggle and Wizarding worlds) long enough to be seen by one fishing boat, then turning to the north and sailing out of history altogether.

Teddy's first guess was that his ship had gone down, but he couldn't think how to prove it.

It was a mystery.

Or perhaps a Mystery.

He thought of the Daedalus Maze. Maddie hadn't said he couldn't use it for school. And why not have something concrete in mind? It might make it more focused, easier to control at first.

A fleeting thought of Phineas Nigellus and his friends abruptly quitting their posts went through Teddy's head, but he dismissed it. There were safety measures now, after all.

When Teddy got back to Gryffindor Tower after his last afternoon class, he found Victoire and Marie Weasley crouched on either side of the sofa, throwing jinxes at each other. Most of the first and third year girls were ranged around, watching the festivities with avid interest.

"Honestly!" Victoire yelled, popping up and trying to Freeze Marie. "I'm just trying to help!"

Marie ducked the spell, but lost hold of her wand. As she darted her hand under the sofa trying to find it, she said, "You - are - not - in - charge!" She grabbed her wand and jabbed it at Victoire's feet, trying a Slipping Hex, but one day's experience hadn't really given her the wherewithal to handle it. Victoire just hopped to one side, as if she'd been stung on the ankle by an inept bumblebee.

Teddy dropped his book bag and went to Marie. He hauled her up to her feet and sat her down on the sofa, then grabbed Victoire and pulled her away.

"What are you doing?"

"Nothing!" Victoire twitched her arm toward Marie. "She had a lot of homework, and she wanted to go off and read _Witch Weekly_ , and I just _suggested_ that she could do her homework first, which would be so much more efficient - "

Teddy shook his head and said quietly, "You know that drives her crazy."

"I'm just trying to help her! I didn't even tell her she had to do it, just said she could _think_ about it..."

"Come on, Victoire. Give her some space. I gave you space when you got here."

It was apparently the wrong thing to say. Victoire reached into her bag, which was never a good sign. Teddy put his hand on her wrist to stop whatever she meant to grab from being pulled out. He looked up at Marie, who was now gloating, and ground his teeth. Weren't any of the other prefects around?

Keeping hold of Victoire's wrist, he turned on Marie. "And you!" he said. "You show your sister some respect."

"What? But she - "

"She's being Victoire. Your sister. You know her."

"But..." Marie looked anxiously at the other first years.

"Oh, I see," Teddy said. "Well, if you're so _afraid_ of what all your friends think of your sister, perhaps you're in the wrong house."

Marie's jaw dropped, and her cheeks turned flame red. "I knew you'd take Victoire's side! You always take Victoire's side!"

"I'm not taking anyone's side. Five points from Gryffindor from each of you." He squirmed a little, feeling eyes on him. He looked between them, then at Victoire, who was still looking mutinous. "And no inter-year hex wars," he said.

Victoire jabbed her wand at him - wrong-handed - mumbled something, and suddenly, his fingers turned to jelly, and her hand slipped away. She turned on her heel and went up the girls' staircase. Teddy reversed her spell with a quick incantation and frowned after her.

Marie reached for a copy of _Witch Weekly._ Teddy Banished it across the room and said, "Do your homework, Marie."

Marie picked up another magazine and turned her back on him.

Near the fireplace, a book lowered, and Teddy caught a glimpse of Ruthless's cloud of red hair. He went and sat down across from her, deciding to let her decide whether to talk or finish her work.

She laughed. "Nice work, _Prefect_."

"Yes, well. Thank you for cutting that off before I had to take points."

"Oh, don't worry. I got ten from Morse for being the first to finish my Confusion Concoction, so we're no worse off than we were this morning."

"How is Ch - er, Professor Morse - doing?"

"She's not half-bad, actually. Her husband's been watching classes. He's more interested than we are, I think."

"I should talk to him sometime soon. He was one of Dad's students, too. Nice bloke, really." Teddy looked into the fire and watched the patterns in the flames for a while. "Donzo's meeting me later to keep studying what we were working on last year. I don't suppose..."

She sighed. "I'd best not. I need to keep my nose clean." She slammed the book shut. "This is silly. Harry Potter's marks weren't all that marvelous."

"Here's hoping you don't have to go through his alternate method of proving himself."

"Mmm."

She didn't go back to studying, but didn't seem to have much else to say, so after a few minutes, Teddy excused himself to his room, grabbing his book bag on the way.

He thought briefly about going into his parents' memories, saved for him on Dad's wedding band, but they mainly repeated themselves now. Mum and Dad hadn't lived long enough to save so many happy memories that Teddy could discover them forever. He also had a feeling that every moment he spent watching them enjoy themselves with absent friends and family, the image of the moonlight glinting off of Bellatrix's knife would interfere with any enjoyment he might find himself.

Instead, he got out the Daedalus Maze, wondering how he might focus it to look for Roderick Brimmann. When he'd gone in with Maddie, they'd found paths that started in places they shared, but what did he share with a pirate who'd died three hundred and fifty years ago? The only pirates he knew anything about were the romantic creatures who populated the pages of several Fifi LaFolle books, and Brimmann didn't seem a very good match for them. Still, as it was the only connection he could think of, he dug up the second book of _The Trials of Tirza_ , the melodramatic series mum had been reading just before she died, which featured a crew of swashbucklers who'd come to the aid of the intrepid heroine. He Transfigured the cover into a boring text on Charms, and read it through a quick dinner, then, the image of the pirate captain clearly in mind, returned to his room. He took Ariadne's Thread in one hand and his wand in the other, said, " _Sulci Numine,_ " and was drawn into the strange, unreal world of the Maze.

Instead of one of the high places where he'd first begun with Maddie, or any place known to him in the real world, he found himself in the crow's nest of Tirza's ship, looking down on an ocean with a maze of tiny islets. He'd been on this ship in his dreams, and knew the layout. He'd often found his parents here, or the other Marauders. But the feel was different this time. It wasn't real. It was just an image the Maze had found in his mind. At the base of the mast, the pirate captain waited.

Teddy took only a step over the edge of the crow's nest, and found himself on deck. The pirate captain stood waiting patiently for him, his back turned. Beyond the bow of the ship, the shape of the maze was more distinct, the islands really rocky walls. Teddy approached the captain. There was a familiar set to the man's shoulders, but nothing Teddy could immediately identify. He just seemed to be a grimy-looking old tar with a bit of a limp. Not exactly what Teddy had pictured for the pirate captain, but then, who knew what the Maze would make of him.

"Sir?"

The pirate didn't turn, but he did walk to the front of the ship, where a lifeboat was waiting on its ropes to be lowered down to the sea. He got into it, his back still turned, and Teddy followed, finding himself on the boat without actually climbing in.

There was the creak of rope on wood, then they were descending toward the wine-dark sea, toward the high walls of stone. Teddy could imagine Scylla and Charybdis carrying on their endless, fatal conversation somewhere nearby, then decided it would be wiser not to imagine such a thing in the Maze.

"Can you show me Brimmann?" he asked.

The pirate captain didn't answer. He was wearing ragged black robes, and a shock of dirty gray hair fell down his back.

The lifeboat went between the high rocks, around a left turn. Water crashed against the rock, and froze still. In it, Teddy could see tormented men and women, reflected in the sun on the water. In the rush of the sea, he could hear laughter.

"Are those Brimmann's victims?" he asked.

The captain began to whistle, and turned right, into a darker passage. Ghost ships sailed around, but the walls took on new shapes, the shapes of trees. The sky was becoming purple. Teddy looked up to read the stars, but they made strange, moving constellations that he couldn't recognize. A shimmering silver disk was rising, a full moon...

Teddy scrambled to the back of the boat.

"I need to know about Roderick Brimmann," he said.

The captain turned and smiled, his sharpened teeth gleaming in the moonlight. Fenrir Greyback threw back his head and howled, his body elongating, his fingers erupting into claws. He leapt at Teddy as he changed.

Teddy grabbed Ariadne's Thread and screamed, "Home!"

He felt himself snatched upward on a draft, saw the maze below him, Greyback howling his fury into the open air, then he was back in his room, clutching his wand and the thread.

He sat down on the floor, breathing heavily. Checkmate crawled out from under the bed and came to him, nosing at him in a concerned way. He picked her up and rocked her absently.

That hadn't been entirely in the plan.

Greyback.

The werewolf who had destroyed Dad's life, the man Teddy had killed.

Why would he, of all people, have appeared as a guide? Teddy certainly hadn't been thinking of him, and he had no connection that Teddy could imagine to Roderick Brimmann.

His breathing slowed and evened.

He'd gone too fast, looked too directly. He needed to learn the Maze better before he tried something like that again. He had to know why it did the things it did before it could be useful.

He glanced at his hands to see if they'd stopped shaking, and gaped at his watch.

He'd also have to learn to keep track of time on the inside of the Maze. It had somehow got to be eleven-fifty, and if he didn't hurry, Donzo'd be waiting around outside Ravenclaw without any way of knowing if there were teachers around.

Teddy grabbed the Marauder's Map, checked it for any lurking dangers downstairs, and slipped out into the Hogwarts night.

Donzo was waiting in the corridor, sitting on the floor beneath the Ravenclaw door knocker and reading something that looked cumbersome. He and Teddy had an unspoken agreement not to question one another's reading tastes - Teddy just preferred to keep his fondness for Fifi LaFolle to himself, for obvious reasons, and Donzo knew that no scandal could kill his career more quickly than a puzzled journalist hearing about him reading obscure history books in his spare time. Apparently, it hadn't occurred to the girls who bought his songs - very oddly, in Teddy's opinion, since they mostly went to Hogwarts - that Donzo McCormack was a quiet, bookish boy who was known to actually enjoy classes with Professor Binns. This late at night, and with no girls around, he was even wearing his glasses.

He stood up and closed the book, tossing it casually into his backpack. "I was about to drop my Patronus on you," he said.

"I know. Sorry I'm late." Teddy checked the Marauder's Map. "We're clear to the library. Filch and Mr. Norris are down in the records room. Peeves is bothering the Longbottoms. Did you know that the third floor corridor leads to the staff family quarters?"

"No idea. It must be all those empty rooms."

Teddy tried to picture the Longbottoms and Morses living in the dingy, abandoned rooms in that wing of the castle, and hoped that they'd found some way to make it less dreary than it sounded. He shook his head. "Well, let's go before Peeves gets bored with them."

"All right." Donzo started past him. "Can we keep it short? I have Defense Against the Dark Arts first thing, and Robards thinks Ravenclaws all daydream too much anyway."

"Sure. I should learn to brew some Invigorating Infusion."

"I wouldn't bother. I used it on tour. It's great for a couple of extra hours, then you sleep for two days straight."

They debated the relative merits of various keep-awake potions - keeping their voices hushed and their eyes on the Marauder's Map - all the way to the library. Someday, it would occur to Madam Pince to lock the door, but that day wasn't here quite yet. Teddy pushed the door open silently, then they slipped through the shadows to the overhang of the Restricted Section.

" _Alohomora_ ," Donzo whispered.

The gate swung open, and the darkened stacks gaped before them, a strange labyrinth of leather-bound time. They no longer had to check the book spines to know where they were going - three stacks over, halfway down, on the left. Madam Pince had done some straightening over the summer, but Teddy knew the books on sight now: _The Beast Within_ (green, tattered cover, last check-out to Hermione Granger, 1996, with a scribbled dog on page one-thirty-two, perpetually barking at a paragraph about dreadful accidents); _Animagus Transformation: Theory and Practice_ (reddish-brown, scuff-mark on the spine that obscured the left side of the title, many notes and jokes in the back in James Potter's tall, narrow script, last actually checked out by Tilda Forde, 1952, checked out to Minerva McGonagall in 1943), _Transformation and the Nature of Identity_ (brown, good condition on the outside, heavily notated - again by James - though with fewer jokes, last checked out by James Potter, 1976, for a paper on Identity, judging by the non-Animagus-related underlinings). There were six other books, thinner, with paper covers, all with penciled notes in handwriting Teddy knew well from the Map. Only _Transformation_ had actually been checked out by one of the Marauders; the others had been used as Teddy was using them now - in the dead of the night, secretly, and with a lot of laughter.

Of course, the Marauders had had a more expansive goal in mind than just seeing if they could do it; they'd done it to help Dad get through his transformations. Teddy considered doing that for Neil, but it wasn't quite the same thing when it was just copying.

Teddy Summoned a step stool and reached up to the top shelf without looking. Another flick of his wand pulled out a spiral-bound Muggle notebook that he'd got in London last summer. While Donzo flipped through _Theory and Practice_ to find their place, Teddy read his last notes from June, which were barely legible, as his fingernails had become feathers, and didn't get as good a grip on his quill. Luckily, he knew that he'd begun with "Definitely hawk" rather than "Declining novid," and that helped to decipher the rest. After several months, he'd been able to produce feathers each time, on the last try creating true hawk feathers. There was a scribble with a question mark, and he closed his eyes to try to remember just what he'd been asking.

"It was about the partial transformation," Donzo said, glancing at the passage in question. "You were wondering why the spell would misfire in that particular way, since it should have been all or nothing."

Teddy had a vague memory of this. "Why, though? It's exactly the sort of thing that happens in Transfiguration."

"I was thinking about that," Donzo said, spreading the book out. "Why should it happen there? Do you remember first year in Transfiguration? The little glass ornaments?"

Teddy nodded. It had been his first successful object Transfiguration.

"Right," Donzo said. "So the problem was, we were all trying to make the wooden ball look like a glass ball, and it only went a little bit at a time."

"Mm-hmm."

"So the whole issue was that we had to stop trying to make it _look_ like glass, and actually make it want to be glass."

"Sure. Robards told me to treat it like a morph, like it was part of my body that wanted to be something. That's what I've been trying to do here."

"But it's not working." Donzo went back to the shelf and pulled down _Human Transfiguration and the Nature of Identity._ "So I was thinking over the summer about this."

"Donzo, why don't you just do this with me? You know you want to." Teddy grinned.

Donzo shrugged. "Grasshoppers and house elves, Lupin. We both know I'd get stepped on."

"Patronuses and raccoons. We both know you wouldn't."

" _So_ ," Donzo said, ignoring him, "what I was thinking was that you're trying to turn into a hawk."

"Well... yes."

"Right. And if you were Transfiguring a rock into a hawk, that would be enough. It would be like morphing your hair - or your fingernails. But actually turning yourself into a hawk is something different."

"What's your point?"

"Well, you could turn the rock into a hawk or a dove, or a turtle or whatnot. But the Animagus transformation only goes in one way - you have one animal to become. Because you're not working with something outside yourself." He Summoned _The Beast Within_ and _Transformation and the Nature of Identity_ , and opened the latter. "Well - the Animagus transformation isn't just about making yourself look different. It's about..." He flipped to a page where James Potter had written extensively, checked one of the notes, then said, "It's about becoming the thing you are. Which really isn't something you can control, as I understand it."

"Right. We're all completely out of our own control. Forget free will."

"It's not about free will. It's about what you want to use your free will to do. You are who you are, and even making a decision to be something is an expression of it." He shrugged sheepishly. "Essentialism versus existentialism. Dad has three shelves of books on that."

Teddy frowned. "You think I'm not the hawk?"

"I've no idea. It's your Patronus rightly enough. Why wouldn't it be your Animagus shape? But you're _trying_ to get there. You have to be there first. I think you have to be a hawk to become a hawk."

"Maybe _you_ should be the Unspeakable," Teddy said.

"I'll stick with being a songwriter," Donzo said. "It pays better."

Teddy took the book and read James's thoughts on solid Identity. He was actually talking about Conjuring - about how one person's Conjured chair was inevitably different from someone else's, based on that person's individual notion of a what made a chair.

Teddy shrugged. "All right, then. What's a hawk?"

Donzo blinked, then suddenly laughed. "Big bird. Eats mice. Shall we catch some for you?"

"I'm so glad I brought you along," Teddy said. "Very helpful. I'm sure there's a rubbish bin you could scavenge from, if we look hard enough."

"Right. And the mask, too. Don't forget the mask." Donzo pointed his wand at the hem of his robe and Severed a two-foot piece. He poked eye-holes in it and tied it around his head. "There. I'm all set. Did you save any feathers from last time?"

The study session quickly devolved into a manic attempt at "becoming" different, increasingly ridiculous, animals, finally fading into a jarvey insult contest a bit after one. Nothing at all had been done, but Teddy didn't feel that the night had been wasted. They put the books away, and Teddy used the Map to get Donzo safely back to Ravenclaw Tower, where the door knocker asked him to resolve a time travel paradox before allowing him inside. Teddy returned to Gryffindor Tower and fell asleep as soon as he climbed into bed.

He didn't dream.


	7. Curse-Borne

**Chapter 7:**

 **Curse-borne**

Halfway down to Hagrid's paddock for their first Care of Magical Creatures class after lunch on Wednesday, Maurice Burke's jaw dropped, and he broke into a run. It took Teddy a moment to register what he was on about, then he spotted the small, neat figure standing on the fence, a green quill in her hand. Teddy looked at Corky and Donzo, and they all sped up to catch up before any harm was done.

"What are you doing here, Higgs?" Maurice demanded. "You don't even take this class."

Honoria Higgs climbed down from the slats and smoothed down her robes. " _Charmer_ business," she said. "I put off the first issue of the year just to make sure this is in it. I have it on good authority that Professor Hagrid intends to re-introduce a hippogriff banned from contact with students for his particular viciousness." Teddy looked into the paddock, where Buckbeak was, indeed, snacking on a fat ferret. His heart sank as Hagrid came out, and Honoria rounded on him. "Professor Hagrid," she said, grabbing her quill tightly. "I've just concluded an interview with a former student who alleges that this animal - which you plan to use with students - was banned from such contact twenty years ago, after it mauled a third year. Is this, in fact, the animal in question?"

"It's Beaky, righ' enough," Hagrid said. "An' yeh can tell Malfoy tha' he can take it up with the new committee on Wizarding education. Care of 'ermione Weasley. Reckon she'd love t' hear from 'im."

"So your political connections have proved useful?"

"And yours haven't," Maurice said. "Fancy that."

She turned and glared at him. "This is an important matter."

"Buckbeak's been here longer than we have," Maurice told her. "And you know perfectly well that he hasn't hurt anyone. Let Professor Hagrid be."

"The hippogriff - "

"Flew in the battle. Do you really mean to start smearing war heroes _again_?"

The rest of the class arrived, approaching tentatively. Tinny Gudgeon narrowed her eyes at Honoria. Roger Young ignored her entirely and started scrounging for things to feed Buckbeak.

Honoria set her jaw. "Has it occurred to you that I'd just like to get the whole story?"

"Not even for a second."

"Well, that's all it is," Honoria said, and turned away from him, nose in the air.

"Yeh picked a good day fer it," Hagrid said. "Go' something special this year fer O.W.L. students to 'ave a look at."

Teddy looked to Buckbeak, who'd now stood up, but was looking around shiftily.

Hagrid raised his wand, and the fence to the stables opened. A small hippogriff, perhaps a third Buckbeak's size, came gamboling out, taking quick, joyful leaps. Teddy had seen baby hippogriffs a year and a half ago in France, and he guessed this was one of them, probably the one Rolf Scamander had been helping Hagrid with on the day of Professor Longbottom's stag party. It pranced over to the fence and stuck its beak eagerly toward Honoria, then toward Maurice, then finally toward Teddy himself. Bored with this, it ran down the fence, flew a few yards, then hopped around playfully in front of Buckbeak.

Buckbeak's shoulders hunched and he shook his great head sadly.

"This 'ere's Dapple," Hagrid said, pointing to the young hippogriff. "'e's Beaky's boy, in't 'e, Beaky?"

Dapple cheerfully bounced around, trying to grab a ferret out from under Buckbeak's talons. Buckbeak looked helplessly at Hagrid. Teddy imagined that he was wondering how this undignified creature could possibly be his kin.

"Now," Hagrid said, apparently missing the entire exchange, "hippogriffs 'ave what yeh migh' call a division o' labor. The mothers raise the girls, and the daddies raise the boys, eh, Beaky? Dapple's sisters are all in France with their mum, and Dapple's come 'ere t' learn about bein' a hippogriff from Beaky."

Teddy wondered, somewhat morosely, who taught that to hippogriffs whose fathers had died flying into battle. Were there god-hippogriffs to teach them? But he didn't ask. It would make Hagrid feel awkward for no good reason.

Dapple ran back to the fence and shoved his face at Honoria again, apparently deciding that he liked her. She blinked at him, then, to Teddy's surprise, curtsied delicately. Dapple seemed delighted with this game, and bowed deeply to her and did a quick, twisting leap for her entertainment. She reached forward tentatively and patted his face. Buckbeak hung his head.

"They're a bi' friendlier when they're young," Hagrid said, then started telling the class about the habits and needs of the hippogriff species. Teddy thought it was the best class he'd had from Hagrid. Throughout the lecture, Dapple continued to prance back and forth between the fence and Buckbeak, looking eagerly for approval from anyone he approached.

After class, Teddy hung back with his friends and waited for Honoria and a few of her mates to leave. Tinny was delightedly feeding Dapple now, and asked Hagrid if she might stay, since she didn't have any more classes today. Roger wanted to do a special project.

Teddy turned to Maurice and Corky. "Will you keep an eye on Honoria at the damned paper?"

" _I_ will," Corky said quickly, before Maurice could jump in. "I don't think we need to threaten her every two seconds on this."

"Sure we don't," Maurice said.

Corky shrugged. "The hippogriff liked her. She's always nice to things that are nice to her."

Teddy thought about his first year, when Frankie Apcarne had been perfectly nice to her, and generous, and she'd responded by writing an article that smeared him in front of the whole school and implied that Teddy thought he was crazy. But that had been first year. He couldn't think of a time since when someone had extended her a kindness and had it responded to with the vitriol of which she was capable.

Then again, she was still going to Draco Malfoy and Rita Skeeter for tasty tidbits for the _Charmer_ , so Teddy wasn't quite ready to trust her yet. "What are you going to do?" he asked Corky.

Corky shrugged. "I'll offer to fact-check. That means I get to read everything before it goes in."

"And if she writes something horrible?" Maurice asked.

"I'll..." Corky shrugged again. "I'll stop being nice to her."

Maurice grumbled something about not knowing why he was being nice in the first place, but it was lost in the wind as they climbed the hill back to the castle. Once inside, they bade Donzo goodbye - he was off to Ancient Runes - and Teddy, Maurice, and Corky headed down to the dungeon for their first Potions class of the year. Honoria, Brendan, and Jane went in just ahead of them.

When they got in, Teddy checked the corridor outside to see if he'd made a wrong turn somewhere.

The dungeon walls had all been charmed to show a view of a mountainside on a sunny day, seen through a series of gothic stone arches. Wildflowers blew in a gentle breeze, and, as Teddy watched, a rabbit hopped toward the barrier, disappearing as it crossed out of the charmed image.

"Well, come in then," a lilting voice said. In the place where Slughorn had held court for all of Teddy's years at Hogwarts, Cho Morse was perched on a high stool, stirring a large cauldron.

The Slytherins looked around nervously, then took seats at gleaming marble tables, each of which had been fitted with a sink and several potion-making implements that were usually kept in storage. There were drawers beneath them, and Teddy glanced quickly into one to see rows of potions ingredients, neatly labeled in glass jars.

The students unpacked their potions kits slowly.

"I hope you don't mind the change," Professor Morse said. "I'm a Ravenclaw. I like things a bit airier. I never did like this dungeon."

" _I_ like it," Teddy offered.

"Good, because you're spending quite a bit of time here. You need to see me after class, Mr. Lupin."

"Yes, Professor Morse."

The door opened, and Daniel came in. He was still wearing a talisman, but he'd actually put on wizard's robes, and looked more than comfortable in them.

"Do any of you mind my husband watching the class?" Professor Morse asked. "The new tables are actually his design. This is how smart Muggle laboratories look."

Daniel fought a grin, and Teddy guessed that the look wasn't _quite_ right, but it seemed to make Professor Morse happy, so all was well.

"All right?" she asked. "Good. Now, today, we'll be brewing a Sharp-Eye Solution. Ironically, I'll have you put on goggles to protect your eyes from it while we're brewing it, as it's thick and tends to bubble and spit." A pair of goggles appeared in front of Teddy, and he put it on wonderingly. Jane Hunter put hers on with the air of someone who'd done so thousands of times, then looked eagerly at Professor Morse, who nodded to her. "We're going to make the basic solution first - you can find the theory of it in your textbook - then we'll try some experiments. Over the next week, you're each to try it with several different additives for improvements, and I want you to report to me on how each ingredient changes the effects of the potion, and how your eyesight changes in different environments. Keep a journal for your data!"

"It's _nearly_ scientific method!" Jane said. "That's wonderful!"

Professor Morse looked deeply pleased at this. She flicked her wand at the blackboard, and the instructions for the basic solution appeared. Once this was accomplished the differences from last year faded, and it became another potions class. Teddy forced his mind not to wander, and managed a decent Sharp-Eye Solution in the allotted time. When class ended, he started to follow Maurice and Corky up to dinner, but Professor Morse tapped his shoulder.

"Teddy, I do need to see you. We'll need to talk about Neil's potion. You'll need to start brewing it quite soon."

"Oh... I wasn't... yes, of course."

"Wait a moment, if you would. I just need to take care of a few class matters."

Teddy nodded, and Professor Morse went back to her desk to clear things up. He felt someone behind him, and turned to find Daniel, who smiled.

"Would you mind at all if I stayed while you work on the Wolfsbane Potion? It's fascinating - it really mutes the lycanthropic symptoms?"

"Yes."

"I've read everything I can get my hands on about the disease. Horrendous thing. No wonder your dad looked ill so often the year he was at Smeltings. And there I was, blathering on about plagues."

Teddy had seen some of this in Dad's ring-memories - Dad had enjoyed Daniel's enthusiastic visits - but wasn't sure how to pass on the information that there had been no hard feelings. Instead, he just said, "Well, it's not really a plague. It's hard to become a werewolf. You have to be bitten. It's not, well... there are no nearly invisible fleas involved or anything. It's a great wolf. Hard to miss the cause."

"True. It's also not, thank God, airborne. I'm still trying to figure out if it's properly called blood-borne."

"It's curse-borne," Teddy said. "Granny taught me the difference. Blood-borne runs in the blood, and you get it by touching blood or mixing it. Airborne just jumps from person to person. But curse-borne diseases have to be passed by the mechanism of the curse."

"In this case, biting," Daniel mused. "Yes, I understand that, then. I just have to get used to a category like that existing. Most Muggle diseases lack intent."

"You should talk to my granny sometime. If you're nice, she might even give you a tour of St. Mungo's."

Daniel grinned brightly. "I shall have to keep that in mind."

Professor Morse finished up whatever she was doing, put several scrolls into a desk drawer, then stood up and came over. "If the pair of you are finished comparing notes, shall I show Teddy where he'll be working this year?"

"I've set aside the old student store room for you," Professor Morse said. "Now that we have the ingredients spread out amongst the tables, I only needed half the cupboard space for extra. I did the same charm on the walls in there, but if you don't care for it, or you'd like different scenery, I'd be happy to change it."

Teddy shook his head. "The meadow is fine. Really."

"Well, it's not very big, but there's space for the magically tended fire. Professor Slughorn told me that you're quite adept at maintaining it."

"Fire is easy," Teddy said. "As long as you keep the potion over it, it should keep. If it goes out, though, you have to brew another batch."

"Finicky," Daniel said.

"Just a bit. Lucky for me. It was Mum having to get Dad the potion every other minute, as he couldn't very well keep a magical fire at Smeltings, that made them fall in love."

Professor Morse opened the door to the store room, and sunlight flooded out. Teddy followed her inside. The room seemed quite a lot bigger than it had been last year. A brand new cauldron stood toward the back, and several plants were lined up on shelves beside it.

"Neville... er, Professor Longbottom... has been tending the plants, and he's happy to keep doing it. If anything seems wrong with them, let him know."

"All right." Teddy looked around. "Is there a calendar here? I haven't been keeping track of the moons as well as I ought to. I haven't needed to since Greyback died."

Professor Morse pointed her wand toward the door and a calendar came flying through it. She affixed it to the wall, where it seemed to hang suspended between two trees.

Teddy studied it. "He has to take it for a week before the full moon, so I think it'll have to be Tuesday. Can I come down on Monday after supper to get the batch started?"

"Yes, of course."

"When does Neil have Potions?"

"Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday mornings, early."

"I think... er..." Teddy flailed. "I think that's early enough for the morning dose. I mean - "

"Can he eat before he takes it?" Daniel prodded.

"Yes! Yes, he can eat anything he'd like."

"And how many doses does he need each day?"

"Three. Mum used to bring it to lunch, and then Dad took it before work and with supper," Teddy said, relieved to have that memory from the ring. Why hadn't he thought about the simplest question of all? Why hadn't Slughorn told him?

"Well, then, it sounds like taking it with meals is a good dosage. Unless there's a magical component to the exact time?"

Teddy shook his head. "No."

Daniel smiled at him. "You'll do just fine, Teddy."

"I hope you'll teach me to help," Professor Morse said.

"I'll show you. I'm not a very good teacher, though." Teddy supposed that Donzo would say this was a flat lie - he'd managed to teach all of them the speaking Patronus Charm over a matter a few weeks last year - but Professor Morse would be thinking of Dad, and comparatively, Teddy thought that made it true enough. He looked at Daniel. "Speaking of which, when are you going to teach about Muggle Healing?"

"Madam Pomfrey and I are working on a presentation for next week. Will you be there?"

"Of course I will."

"I'm very excited about it," Professor Morse said. "Can you imagine? It's the first time Muggle science will be taught at Hogwarts in a thousand years."

"No pressure, though," Daniel said.

Teddy smiled dutifully. After a few more minutes of being shown around, he made his excuses and went to the Great Hall for dinner. Victoire and Marie were sitting at the far end of the Gryffindor table, and judging by the aggressive jut of Marie's chin and the agitated way Victoire was squirming, they were having another tiff. They weren't loud enough to disturb passing hippogriffs this time, though, and they weren't throwing Curses, so Teddy decided to let them be. Ruthless wasn't there yet, so he didn't really have any Gryffindors to sit with. He took his plate and wandered over to Hufflepuff, where Frankie Apcarne was putting the cutlery through a complex sort of choreography while a salt shaker hummed a waltz.

"That'll be useful in later life," Teddy said, sitting down beside him.

Frankie shrugged. "Who says everything needs to be useful?" He winked across at Tinny, who was levitating a bit of cloth to serve as the top of a tent.

Tinny flicked her wand, and the cloth developed jolly black and yellow stripes. "Lupin, as long as you're here, you'll have to think of something. We could use drummers, I think."

Teddy cast around for something to charm. Frankie and Tinny each appeared to have finished a chicken leg, so he took the bones and set them to a simple one-two-three beat. "Anything more complicated, and we'll need to ask Donzo," he said.

Further down the table, Roger noticed the game, and soon, his goblet was strolling around, making a sound like a wandering violinist. A few first year 'Puffs said, "Wingardium Leviosa" in unison, and several quills began to float around in a stately manner. Frankie's cutlery promptly flew up to dance around them, to the delight of first years, who didn't seem to care _what_ the social status of a seventh year was, if he was willing to play with them at all. By the time Headmistress Sprout put an end to the game with an irritated, "Oh, for heaven's sake, Mr. Apcarne, you're quite old enough to know better than to play with your utensils," most of the 'Puffs had found something to contribute. Teddy settled in to eat.

"Had a letter from Mum today," Frankie said when everyone's attention had wandered. "She wants to know if you're looking well and eating properly. Shall I tell her the truth?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"That you look like something Checkmate dragged in from the garden and played with for a few hours."

Teddy started to morph away the puffy little bags under his eyes.

"And don't morph," Frankie said. "I already noticed, so it's a little late."

"Don't tell her. It's not... well, not the thing she's worried about. It's just brewing the potion for Neil, and of course Ruthless broke up with me."

"Again?"

"Yes. But I'll never recover from it this time, you know." Teddy put his hand dramatically over his heart.

"Right. She's got you on some damnably Unspeakable business, hasn't she?"

"Yes, but that has nothing to do with me being tired. Really. You don't need to pass it on. I have a problem with it, but it's... technical, I suppose. Tell her I'll write."

"All right." Frankie toyed with his food. "She also said that Dad's been looking at offices in Diagon Alley. He's been talking to some of his authors, and he's trying to buy a press. He wants to start his own publishing company. Historical things, and maybe some fiction."

"That sounds good."

"He said this summer that if I wanted to do that, I could join him. We could be partners."

"Do you want to?"

"Yes."

"Cheers, then. It's a plan."

"If I can do it. I really don't know that much about it. D'you reckon I could have some of those stories you write for James? I'll see if I can make a book of them. Just to see if I like doing it."

"Sure. Do you want some of James's, too?"

"Er... I think perhaps he's not quite old enough to make a production of it. I was going to send it to Dad. To show I can pick something good."

"You might want to pick something other than the drivel I write for James, then. Granny says Professor Morse writes good poetry."

"I'll stick with your drivel any day," Frankie said, then pointed to a roll on Teddy's tray. "Are you going to eat that?"

Feeling oddly lighthearted - a great release from the stress of Potions - at the thought of the silly stories he'd made up for James being put together into something that looked like a book, Teddy headed back up to his room, did the small bit of homework he'd got, then took out the Daedalus Maze for the first time since he'd been forced to run from Fenrir Greyback.

"Don't try to find Brimmann," he reminded himself. "Don't _try._ "

He hoped this would make it work a bit better, though he decided that if he so much as suspected his guide was a dead cannibal with a taste for children again, he'd leave the Maze without looking around.

He opened it, and found himself beside Granny's pond. To his utter delight, Sirius Black was waiting there for him - fifteen years old, with a dangerous sort of laughter in his face. Teddy could see little James in him, and then he _became_ James, but not Teddy's James - Uncle Harry's father. This James Potter winked from behind his glasses and led Teddy into the Maze, which was formed from the bright flowers of Granny's greenhouse, where Teddy had spent many happy hours pretending to explore the jungle when he was small. At the first turn, James turned into Prongs, then into the large black dog who was Padfoot, then into Sirius. The flowered walls were covered with mirrors, each of them showing Teddy something different when he looked into it. Just morphs, nothing dreadful. He laughed, and glanced at another mirror, in which Mum was laughing back at him.

Sirius became Dad, also fifteen, and Dad led him around another turn, where he could see the Marauders - well, Sirius, Peter, and James, anyway - hunched around their books in the library, then he saw himself and Donzo hunched around the same books, Donzo with his ridiculous mask on. Dad smiled.

Teddy continued to explore this part of the Maze, counting his turns, enjoying appearances by a very young Granny, the Weasley twins, and even his own James Potter. At ten turns, he wasn't altogether sure he'd be able to take another twist in the road, so he followed his path back, his guides morphing along with him, and finally left the maze. Sirius walked back to the pond with him, then grinned and disappeared. Teddy was laughing when the spell ended and he found himself back in his room. It was ten-forty.

So that was why Dumbledore's father had wanted the Maze in Azkaban. It might have frightening turns, but it could also do this, take him through happy things. Was happiness a Mystery? It didn't have its own division, but it could be, at that.

Teddy set the Maze back into its spot under his bed, and turned to get his pajamas on for the night. He caught sight of himself in the mirror and stopped.

He'd long ago stopped morphing his hair into absurd colors on a routine basis, but somehow, in the Maze, it had gone the bright pink that Mum had favored. He hadn't done it deliberately.

Frowning, he relaxed the morph, and let his hair return its natural shade of brown.

Teddy collected Neil at breakfast on Tuesday morning, and went down to Potions a few minutes ahead of his class. Professor Morse had apparently got bored with her mountain meadow, as the Charmed view through her windows now showed a wild, rocky Scottish beach. Gulls and terns swept the sky. It was harsh and untamed, and something in it made Teddy stop and stare.

"What is it?" Neil asked. "Is it that smell? Is something wrong?"

Teddy shook his head. "No. The Potion smells awful, but the way it's meant to. Does it smell different to you than it usually does?"

"No."

"We'll check it before you drink it, but it ought to be fine. I was just enjoying the scenery."

Neil looked at the beach with disbelief, muttered, "It looks _cold_ ," then scurried into the work room.

Teddy followed him, taking a clean goblet down from the shelves by the door as he went. He scooped it into the cauldron. He came up with a smoking, stinking mess of it, and hoped that someone would improve the recipe sometime soon. "Here," he said, handing it to Neil. "Cheers."

Neil stuck his nose in the shallow smoke, then started taking little sips. "What would happen if _you_ drank this?" he asked.

"I don't really want to find out," Teddy said. He watched Neil drink for a little while. "How has school been? Corky said you were in the Common Room the first night."

"Oh. That. Right. There's a boy in my dormitory - H.J. It's short for Harold James, and he thinks he's named for your uncle Harry, and I _told_ him that the name wasn't right, but he didn't believe me."

"I wouldn't bother with that. You can't do it in any way that doesn't sound bad. Let it be."

"Trust me, I will. But I didn't at first, and they didn't like me. So H.J. comes out with a piece of a newspaper. He said he brought it because he just knew I'd be in his year, and it was about how my family got attacked and I'm... you know."

"Yes, I know - a boy who's not drinking his potion."

Neil wrinkled his nose, then took two large gulps and made a soft gagging sound. When he'd managed not to bring it back up, he said, "So they all know. And they started making growling noises at me. Mum Evvie says I shouldn't lose my temper at people, so I left and went to the Common Room."

"Your mum Evvie is a smart woman," Teddy said, and watched Neil struggle to get down the rest of the potion. He'd watched Evvie and Nate do it several times, and he guessed that the taste must be truly vile. "Is it getting any better with your dormitory-mates?"

Neil shrugged, still trying to force himself to swallow.

Teddy sighed. A part of him had hoped that Neil would be very popular, and the social curse on werewolves would finally end. It would be like watching Dad get a second chance. But Neil wasn't Dad, and this H.J. would most likely have found something other than the lycanthropy to pick on about him if it hadn't been handy. "Well," Teddy said, "do you think it'll work itself out, or am I going to have to start Cursing firstie Slytherins?"

Neil polished off the potion. "Maurice Burke already did. He said that Slytherin - "

" - takes care of its own problems now," Teddy finished. It was Maurice's personal motto, and it had been all Corky could do to keep him from carving it above the Slytherin fireplace.

"Just so," Neil said. "Maurice says that we'll have enough trouble after Tom Riddle's war without... er... he said, 'renewing our reputation.'" Judging by his face and tone, Teddy guessed that Neil had very little idea about "Tom Riddle's war" or what reputation was being renewed. "It's stupid, really," Neil went on. "Why should Maurice have to run around Cursing people just because someone else did something bad a long time ago?"

Teddy had no answer for this that seemed fair, when it was put in those terms, so he changed the subject. "Where are you going to transform? The Shrieking Shack, er..." The Shrieking Shack was a pile of burnt and rotting splinters, and the tunnel to it a mile-long shallow ditch. Teddy thought he might have done well with counsel not to lose his own temper. "The Shrieking Shack isn't there anymore."

Neil, who'd been in the sanctuary and had probably never heard Dad's house named, looked at him blankly, then said, "I'm going to the gate after lunch on the day of the full moon, and Père Alderman or Vivian will meet me and take me back to France by Side-Along Apparition. Mum Evvie and Daddy Nate haven't quite got the hang of the thing yet."

"Oh. I hadn't really thought of you leaving altogether," Teddy said. "That's a good way to handle it."

"If I can ever catch up on my homework after. It's very hard."

"Is there anything special you're having trouble with? I could help."

Neil looked at the floor and shook his head. There was a rumble of noise outside as the other first years came in. "I'll be fine," Neil muttered, and scuffled out to a table, where he sat with a girl with greasy pigtails and a skinny boy with an overbite. The boy looked at him nervously, then, with what appeared to be a great effort of will, smiled and passed him several sunflower petals. They started to turn these into paste with a mortar and pestle, and Teddy left, hoping to make his History of Magic class before Binns noticed that he wasn't in his accustomed seat.

He needn't have worried. When he got to Binns's classroom, Daniel Morse was leaning on the desk, looking nervously out at the five Ravenclaws who'd already arrived.

Teddy blinked at him, then said, "Sorry I'm late. I had... business to attend to."

"I'm aware of it, Mr. Lupin," Daniel said. He squeezed a piece of chalk he was holding hard enough that it broke with a loud crack. "Please take your seat."

Lizzie Richardson, looking conspicuously away from Teddy (as she had when he entered a room since the day they'd broken up), raised her hand. "Dr. Morse? Where is Professor Binns?"

Daniel took a deep breath. "As I understand it, he was called away to adjudicate a matter on the Council of Ghosts. Something to do with an unorthodox haunting. Quite interesting, really. But sudden. Headmistress Sprout isn't accustomed to finding History of Magic substitutes, so she asked if I might keep your attention with some of the historical material I've been working on with Madam Pomfrey."

"About normal medicine?" Geoffrey Phillips asked.

"Well, Muggle medicine, at any rate. I imagine that magical Healing is more normal here."

"They _entirely_ refuse to accept any advances," Geoffrey said, leaning forward conspiratorially. "I'd certainly rather be ill in the real world."

Daniel frowned, then shrugged and said, "I suppose there's some validity to that. But I'm not really going to talk about Muggle science just now. This is a history class. As it happens, I love history, and I'm very excited to learn a whole new corner of it."

Geoffrey looked less than thrilled that not even an actual Muggle could be pulled into his tirades against the Wizarding world, but refrained from further grumbling. Teddy supposed he was making up some reason for such a dastardly betrayal of common cause. He wondered what Granddad - a Muggle-born who'd fallen in love with a Black and yet somehow managed to also fall in love with computers - would make of Geoffrey and his mad notions, and decided to see if he could find out by using the Maze.

Daniel turned to the blackboard and wrote "The Galdreward Quarantine," then turned back to the class. "Does anyone know about this?"

Donzo raised his hand tentatively, and Daniel nodded at him. He said, "Didn't it start with a Muggle disease? Cholera, or smallpox?"

"Yes. But it was actually a plague outbreak. Not the big one, but a later one." Daniel smiled to himself, and Teddy thought of Dad's memory of Daniel as a child, delightedly giving every gory detail of that particular plague while they shared biscuits in his ugly Smeltings office. He supposed Daniel was thinking of the same thing, as the plague itself wasn't exactly a smiling sort of subject. Daniel went on, "Quarantines have a long history in the Muggle world as well as the magical world, but until then, neither had been able to achieve a perfect one. Galdreward's quarantine actually magically sealed off infected areas upon the first infection - one of them was here at Hogwarts. No one could get in or out, and neither could anything that was carrying it. The school Healer at the time was able to cure the infected boy, and there were no further cases, even though it was raging all around the school."

"And they just left the Muggles to die," Geoffrey said. "Typical."

Daniel made what looked like a Herculean effort not to roll his eyes, and didn't entirely succeed. "Mr. Phillips, is it?"

"Right."

"Magical Healing works with a witch or wizard's natural magic, much to my disappointment. All the spells and potions in the world won't work on a Muggle disease in a Muggle body, if they don't have something to work from. I've seen witches and wizards in many parts of the world risking the Statute of Secrecy and their own health in an attempt to help their Muggle neighbors, but it never works. The only time magic works on a Muggle is if the disease itself is magical in nature, or curse-borne." Daniel sat back lightly on Binns's desk. "Now, after the plague passed - that time, anyway - Galdreward worked to improve his quarantine, so it would take effect any time a certain danger threshold was passed. I don't pretend to understand the magical mechanics, but in terms of magical history, a series of quarantines in the seventeenth century contributed greatly to the success of the Statute of Secrecy in Britain..."

Teddy listened as the last of Daniel's nervousness melted away, and he once again became the boy who'd been Dad's student, thrilling to the dark turns of history, exploring the innovations that made it possible to come through on the other side. It wasn't like a lesson with Binns - Donzo was scribbling all of his usual notes, but Geoffrey gave up his muttering entirely. Connie Deverill looked nearly star struck, and Lizzie broke her Teddy-boycott to ask for a new quill when she managed to wear down her nib taking down points of interest. Franklin Driscoll was occupying himself with sketching, as usual, for his _Charmer_ comic strip, _Hoggy Warty_ , but instead of the usual unrelated panels, he seemed to be designing a character for Daniel (as far as Teddy could tell, he was drawing Daniel as a human, instead of the anthropomorphic animals that represented the rest of the staff and students). Teddy wondered if this was what it had felt like to sit in one of Dad's classes. He decided to ask Uncle Harry.

When the bell rang, for the first time since Teddy had started taking History of Magic, he was sorry to leave.


	8. Ghost Writer

**Chapter 8:**

 **Ghost Writer**

By the time Daniel's first planned lecture was scheduled, word had spread from the classes he'd taught for Binns that he made History of Magic interesting. Binns had rushed his adjudication to return for the next day's classes when he heard, and for nearly half a class period (third year Ravenclaws; Teddy heard about it from Story Shacklebolt), tried to maintain some level of enthusiasm. He seemed miffed that students wanted lessons from a Muggle substitute, not even an historian. No one cared.

The lecture was in Firenze's classroom, on the first floor, as Firenze himself wanted to attend, on the evening before the full moon. Teddy took Neil down to get his Potion after supper (thankfully, he was still showing no signs of accidental poisoning from mis-brewed Wolfsbane), then walked back up with him to hear it. They were forced nearly to the back of the room, even though it was large. Neil nearly jumped out of his skin when Firenze greeted him with a nod. Firenze seemed to find this amusing, though he didn't comment.

A battered old desk had been brought into the room and placed on the rise where Firenze usually stood to teach star-reading, and Daniel was leaning against it, his hands in his pockets. Professor Morse was sitting on a nearby rock, and Headmistress Sprout was trying to call for quiet. Madam Pomfrey scurried back to check on Neil - she used a Muffling charm to prevent even Teddy from hearing the words they were speaking - then went to stand beside Daniel. Professor Longbottom and Hannah were sitting comfortably on a hillock by the window, with several Gryffindors around them. Teddy caught a glimpse of his friends, who were near the front, but he couldn't get through the crowd.

Daniel smiled. "I'm very happy to see everyone," he said. "I imagined only a handful. I used to be in a history club at my school. It was started by Professor Lupin." The staff smiled fondly, and Teddy, to his surprise, felt simple pride, uncomplicated by Dad's death. It was something he would have felt anyway, he supposed, even if Dad was just at the Shrieking Shack. Daniel shook his head. "Trust me, there were never this many people. But we always talked about the most disgusting things we could find..."

He and Madam Pomfrey segued into a long, excited discussion of various wizarding plagues - Spattergroit, Morphosia Fever, Striping Skullduggery, many others. Teddy knew them from Granny's books, but there hadn't been a real outbreak of anything dangerous since years before he was born. Daniel made a point of clarifying that there was nothing amusing about real plagues; he and Professor Morse had worked in outbreak areas for years. Then he went on to tell an exciting story about a cholera outbreak, where they'd used his knowledge of what caused the disease and her ability to magically track the agent to find the contaminated water. Madam Pomfrey then took over to explain how she was learning Muggle surgery techniques and theory to improve internal Healing spells. Teddy hoped she would find some new way to clean out lungs after a fire. His first year, he'd been trapped in the burning Forbidden Forest, and she'd had to magically remove _everything_ in his lungs to clean them out. It remained Teddy's most unpleasant firsthand experience of magic.

After the lecture, the crowd of questioners pressed in a little too tightly around Daniel for Teddy to edge in, so he guessed he'd just have to congratulate him later. He started out.

"Teddy! Oi, Lupin!"

He looked over his shoulder. Tinny Gudgeon, who was the smallest person in his year, was weaving through a knot of Ravenclaws, waving frantically. She wasn't his closest friend, but they'd always got along, and she'd been Frankie's girlfriend for four months now, so she was something of an in-law at any rate. Teddy paused, debated trying to go and meet her, but reckoned that by the time he found a path, she'd be here. He just waited.

She emerged sideways from between two seventh-year Gryffindors, nodded to Neil and Firenze, then turned to Teddy. "We're all meeting in that antechamber outside the Great Hall."

"We? Who... the Guard?"

"What? No. The whole year. Well, except for Phillips - Franklin Driscoll's going to talk to him, but I don't think it'll work. He thinks the whole thing is absurd, since we're not even being marked, and that the prize is unfair to Muggle-borns, who couldn't use it anyway, and..."

Teddy held up his hand. "What?"

"Oh. Sorry. We were talking about it while you were downstairs with Neil. Mostly the Hufflepuffs, but the Ravenclaws thought it was a good idea, and the Slytherins said they'd try anything once. Robards' assignment - with the dark wizards? We were going to pool our information, and see if anyone knew anything useful to anyone else."

Teddy thought of the endless meetings Uncle Harry and Ron sometimes complained about, and smiled. "Well, Robards wanted us to find out what it was like to be an Auror. Why not?"

Tinny put her book bag down and stood on top of it to see above the crowd. She waved her arms. "Gryffindor's in!" she yelled.

Across the room, Corky gave her a thumbs-up.

Since Tinny and Teddy were closest to the door, they headed out together. "Where's Frankie?" Teddy asked. "I didn't see him at the lecture."

She rolled her eyes. "He was up all last night studying. In September. He fell asleep in the Common Room." She reached the door of the antechamber where first years prepared for the Sorting Feast, and pushed it open. There was a long wooden table there, and Rosmerta was fluttering around it, trying (unsuccessfully) to straighten a candlestick.

"Would you like me to get that?" Tinny asked.

"Oh, yes, dear," Rosmerta said, palpably relieved. "It's _just_ off-center. A little to the left, if you could. Oh, it _is_ an inconvenience not to be able to fix things on my own! Mr. Lupin, I don't suppose I could bother you to straighten the mirror?"

Teddy tapped a mirror near the fireplace. It didn't look crooked to him, but Rosmerta was nearly as finicky as Victoire, and she seemed to notice a difference. By the time she'd finished thanking him, several other members of Teddy's year had arrived.

"Oh, is there a class here?" Rosmerta asked. "I didn't realize they needed to take this room for classes."

"We're just meeting here," Tinny said.

"Oh, I'll go, then."

"You can stay," Corky told her. "You make any place prettier."

"Oh, you're so sweet."

Honoria looked cross at the idea of a ghost staying, but as Teddy watched, she rearranged her face as completely as he could with a morph. She smiled. "Madam Rosmerta, you worked at the Three Broomsticks for a long time, didn't you?"

"I owned it, dear."

"Did you ever run across a witch called Bianca Giles?"

"Giles..." Rosmerta wrinkled her translucent nose. "Oh, yes. She used to come in when I was only a barmaid. Miserable thing."

"Is there anything you could tell me about her?" Honoria pressed.

"Certainly not. I told the Aurors everything I knew about the creature when they found out she'd been mistreating Muggle men."

"Were there children? Or rumors? Did she ever suddenly gain weight and then lose it again?"

"Why on Earth would you care about such a thing?" Rosmerta asked.

"It's an assignment."

"Well, the Aurors beat you to even those questions. I don't care to discuss it further." Rosmerta turned and floated out through the wall.

"Nice," Maurice said. "Now, we can't check with her on any others."

"Well, she hardly seems helpful, anyway." Honoria sat down. The rest of the Slytherins and Hufflepuffs had arrived, and Lizzie and Connie had come down from Ravenclaw. As Teddy settled in, the door opened, and Donzo came in, then, to Teddy's astonishment, Geoffrey Phillips, prodded by Franklin Driscoll. Franklin was giving him a glare.

They all settled around the table.

Laura - to Teddy's surprise - took the lead. She clapped her hands smartly and said, "For the Slytherins and, well, Teddy, we were talking about this after Defense Against the Dark Arts. We all have different Dark witches and wizards to catch, and different things we can draw on. And it occurred to us that we can be our own first resource. See what we have. For instance, my assignment is a bloke called Uriah Bowles, and he trained Dark creatures to attack. Roger knows a lot about Dark creatures. And so on. So... I thought we should all say who we had, and we'd see if any of us could help."

"How very Hufflepuff of you," Corky said.

"And Hufflepuffs can't have the right idea?" she grinned, and Corky smiled back.

Honoria glared at her, and a nasty thought started to dawn on Teddy.

To distract himself, he pulled his book bag around and brought out the parchment with the information on Brimmann. He read it aloud.

They looked at each other blankly.

"A pirate?" Maurice said. "You got an actual _pirate_?"

"Yes, I got a real pirate. Has anyone done any research on them?"

Everyone looked around awkwardly. It wasn't an auspicious start.

Maurice broke the silence. "Well, I checked on Deborah Earmbana. I asked Mr. Borgin and got quite a rude note about how if I had any decency, I wouldn't consider sharing information about customers. So I suppose all I know is that she bought things at the bloody shop, which they probably all did."

Brendan Lynch shrugged. "I got stuck with some old bloke - no one anyone knows. He went around as a court jester, and Mesmerized people into giving him all of their gold. There ought to be quite a treasure somewhere, but no one ever tracked him down."

"Oh, I know that one," Donzo said. "He's a legend. They said he gave the treasure to the poor."

"The poor never seemed to see any of it," Brendan said, rolling his eyes.

"You're talking about Baxley Dorne, right?"

"What do you know about him?" Brendan fumbled for a quill, and ended up borrowing a suspicious-looking acid-green one from Honoria.

It turned out that Corky had heard rumors about Roger's assignment (a furrier who'd branched out into human scalps and was a common bogeyman in stories he'd heard as a child), Jane recognized parts of what she called an "urban legend" in Donzo's (a man who'd used Silencing Charms to kill Muggles in a full house, leaving only one alive to tell the tale), and Teddy recognized the name of Franklin's assignment (a hippogriff thief) as a typical Black star name, and promised to ask Granny about it. Most of them came away with at least _something_ to start on that hadn't been in the Aurors' files.

Except for Teddy. No one had any connection to pirates.

It hadn't been a waste - he'd been able to help Franklin and possibly Geoffrey (though it was hard to tell) - but he didn't feel particularly energized when he went back to his room at curfew. The Daedalus Maze was his only hope of finding a new angle, but unless he learned more about what he was looking for, he'd just end up going through his own nightmares again. Unfortunately, the only person he knew of who cared about pirates was James, and James had not, to Teddy's knowledge, done excessive research on the subject. Beyond that, all he had were Mum's old paperbacks, with their romantic swashbucklers running around improbably honorable pirate ships. There were a lot of details about life at sea, but somehow the pirates themselves...

Teddy frowned, then quickly drew out the Marauder's Map. He searched it, and found what he was looking for only a bit down the corridor from the Fat Lady's portrait. He ran out, ignoring her protest about curfew, and called, "Nick!"

Nearly Headless Nick was floating by a window, looking wistfully out over the grounds. He turned eagerly. "Can I help you, Teddy?"

"Yes. I need to find out how to reach a ghost."

"Well, I'm right here..."

"No, not you. I mean, unless you know something about pirates..."

"I should say not. And you know that your parents..."

"They wouldn't know anything about pirates either," Teddy said, then shook his head, worried that he might be offending Nick. "Nick, I need to know how to get in touch with Fifi LaFolle."

According to Nick, Fifi LaFolle had a living personal assistant to take care of her business - with no great surprise, Teddy recognized the name of one of Dad's students, Lavender Brown, who'd once patiently sat and helped him with sums - but that it would be more effective to contact her through ghostly means. "The direct approach carries a certain personal touch," Nick pontificated. "And I would be honored to reach Miss LaFolle for you." He straightened his oversized ruff, turned, and disappeared through the castle wall.

The next day at breakfast, a dove arrived with the morning owls (looking quite nervous, Teddy thought), a piece of pink parchment tied to her foot. She landed in front of him and fluttered her wings importantly. Teddy took the parchment and unfolded it. It was bordered with slightly darker pink hearts.

 _Dear Mr. Lupin,  
Miss LaFolle was delighted to entertain Sir Nicholas on your behalf last evening, and asked me to promptly arrange a visit to Hogwarts for her. Headmistress Sprout has given permission for us to meet you tomorrow evening (Wednesday) in the study behind the Great Hall. I will bring any research materials that pertain to pirates. To my surprise, there was a great deal of information stored away. Miss LaFolle takes great pride in her research._

 _We look forward to seeing you._

 _Lavender Brown,  
for Fifi LaFolle_

 _P.S.: Teddy, I should warn you, she will complain about not being able to pinch your cheeks, and if your robes aren't in good order, she'll keep fussing at you until you fix them. It's her nature; don't take offense. Don't tell her I added this. LB._

"What's that?" Ruthless asked, looking at the dove like it might suddenly attack. "Who's writing to you?"

"Oh, it's for Robards' class," Teddy said.

Victoire leaned over and tried to see the note. "You have a dove for Defense Against the Dark Arts?"

"For that thing he's got you fifth years on?" Ruthless asked. "I wish I could try it. I wonder if he has an extra I could have." She smiled at the note. "Are you after some mad love potion brewer?"

"No. I just needed help about pirates."

"And the best person to give it writes to you on pink parchment?"

Teddy shrugged. "Could be."

"Well, who is she?" Victoire asked.

"No one you know," Teddy said, not wanting to admit that he read Fifi LaFolle, let alone had thought to ask for her help. Ruthless was also trying to see the note now. He folded it and shoved it into his book bag. " _Either_ of you. Honestly."

The Headmistress had apparently passed the information on to Professor Robards, who wanted to see Teddy after class to ask what exactly he was after. Teddy said that he was just getting background, and Fifi LaFolle had, he'd heard from an unspecified person, done some research on wizarding pirates. "I only meant to write to her and ask," he said. "I didn't mean for such a great fuss to be made about it."

He expected Robards to roll his eyes and say it was a ridiculous tactic, but instead, Robards got quiet and said, "All right, Lupin, get on with it, then. Let me know if she has useful information." He waved Teddy off.

He snuck out late for another Animagus practice session with Donzo, but got nowhere. It occurred to him that doves were a food source for hawks, which - given the embarrassment factor - seemed like incentive to finish the spell.

"You know, that _is_ odd," Donzo said when he muttered something about this. "Hawks are quite violent. Not really what I think of with you."

Teddy thought of Fenrir Greyback, running out into the Shrieking Shack, a ball of living fire, and shuddered. That wasn't what _his_ hawk meant at all.

He put on a fresh set of robes after Care of Magical Creatures the next day and made sure all of his insignia were straight, including his prefect badge, which hadn't seen the light of day for quite a while. The hem of the outer robe was further from the floor than it had been when Granny had bought it a month ago, but it wasn't too bad, and he didn't bother morphing to cover it. He took his book bag to dinner, though he didn't need it; it wouldn't do to carry down _The Lost Treasure_ where anyone at all could see it. He also took a fresh scroll and a clean quill. There wasn't much to be done about his ink bottle, which was smeared and milky from four years of use, but it would have to do. He refilled it before he left.

Any notion of subtlety ran aground once he got to the Great Hall. Ghosts were crowding around the High Table, craning their necks and putting their heads through the wall to see into the study. The door was ajar, and Teddy could see the Headmistress amidst piles of pink roses. A little white poodle, trimmed in a silly French style, periodically came out and offered its puffy head for petting by delighted girls. It seemed to particularly like Victoire, as it returned to her repeatedly during the meal. She and Marie had apparently decided that it properly spoke French, and were baby-talking to it in its own language. Ruthless pretended to gag herself, then went upstairs and came back with Ogden. "We need a _real_ animal around here," she said. "Go on, Moggie-Oggie. Make faces."

Ogden looked as disgusted with the spectacle as Ruthless was (they actually looked somewhat alike), but didn't do any special tricks to express this. He just turned his back on the dog and lowered his head. Ruthless leaned down and touched her own forehead to it, then put him on her shoulder and started scratching his neck vigorously. She looked at Teddy. "This is yours, isn't it?"

Before he could answer, Professor Sprout completed the evening by saying, "Mr. Lupin, we're ready for you."

Ignoring the snickering, Teddy gathered his things and went to the study. A pearly ghost with curly white hair hovered behind the desk, staring dreamily at the fire. At the desk, Lavender Brown was arranging scrolls and Muggle notebooks.

"Ah, Teddy," Professor Sprout said. "May I introduce Fifi LaFolle?"

The ghost turned and smiled broadly, floating down toward Teddy in a predatory way. "Oh, my!" she said. "What a very handsome boy! Lavender, take down his looks, we shall have to put him into _Celestia's Secret_ , perhaps that boy down the lane she saw in the last chapter. He could be the one who helps Celestia find a place to meet with Rip..."

Teddy looked at Lavender, alarmed.

She smiled at Fifi LaFolle and said, "Now, then, Miss LaFolle, I think you're frightening him." She turned to Teddy. "Don't worry - she steals people's looks all the time. No one's ever noticed, if they didn't already know."

"You wouldn't like it?" Fifi asked, looking crushed.

Teddy squirmed. "Er... I suppose..." He looked for a chair to occupy himself, and waited for Professor Sprout to leave and close the door. "I... I've actually read a lot of your books."

The disappointed look disappeared immediately. "You have? What's your favorite? What do you like about them?"

"Er... I like the _Trials of Tirza._ My Mum had just finished _The Lost Treasure_ when she died."

"Did she enjoy it?"

"I... don't know. I was only two weeks old." Teddy looked at Lavender again.

Lavender sighed. "Fifi, you know about Teddy's parents. He has questions to ask you about your books."

"Oh, yes, of course." Fifi floated down and made herself appear to sit in a large wing chair. "What can I answer for you?"

"Well, in _Tirza_ , you spend a lot of time on the pirate ship. You had a lot of details. I wondered if, while you were researching, you happened across anything about a wizarding pirate called Roderick Brimmann."

"Mmm. Yes, of course. There aren't really many wizarding pirates, you know. It's never been one of our vices." She gestured to Lavender, who came over with an open book. Teddy could see that it was hand-written. Fifi glanced at it. "Brimmann was totally unsuitable for a book, of course. Who would want to read about a filth-ridden cretin? But I did use the logs the Aurors recovered to get a sense of life on board a pirate ship. Have you had access to them?"

"No," Teddy said.

"You bought them, Miss LaFolle," Lavender said. "Don't you remember? They were in the _Tirza_ files. You had Miss Crockford acquire them for you."

"Oh, yes. Yes. Dear Doris. She was a capable assistant, though of course, not nearly as sunny as you are, dear." Fifi gave a deeply sweet smile to Lavender. "It's quite amazing what the Ministry is willing to part with, once it's far in the past. Did we bring the logs? We can give them to young Ted here - is that short for Edward or Theodore?"

"It's just Ted," Teddy said. "And mostly, it's Teddy. My grandfather was Ted."

"I see." Fifi looked intrigued by this commonplace bit of knowledge, but at a look from Lavender, didn't pursue whatever had caught her interest. "You're welcome to Brimmann's logs, _Teddy_. I think I'm quite finished with my pirate stories."

"Thank you," Teddy said as Lavender handed him several scrolls. "I really appreciate it. It's just a school assignment, and I didn't mean to cause such a fuss..."

Fifi brushed it off with one translucent hand. "The days are so alike now," she sighed. "It seemed a good way to change one of them."

"Oh." Teddy fingered the logs, trying to guess their length. "Did you learn anything else?"

"Certainly. Dear Doris took the trouble to travel to Africa for me. There were newspaper articles about his disappearance, though of course, the main issue at the time was the crime he'd committed before sailing off."

"The slave ship, and the party? With all of the dead Muggles?"

"Oh, that was just the start, dear," Fifi said. "He also left behind a vicious Curse. Blistering Bloodspots. It was said that he set it on anyone who dared oppose him. Nearly half the village died from it!" She wrinkled her nose. "If I'd written it, the village wizard would have gone after that ship and dragged it back."

"For a trial and Azkaban?" Teddy asked.

Fifi laughed. "Oh, dear, no. Too distant. That would be a very unsatisfying ending." She thought about it. "I think I would have him put into confinement in the village, where a lovely local girl in the next book would convince him of his evil ways. But first, I'd be certain it was a very unpleasant confinement." She smiled again. "What else would you like to know?"

The interview lasted for well over an hour, until Professor Longbottom tapped on the door and said, "I'm sorry to interrupt, Miss LaFolle, but our curfew is only an hour away, and I'm sure Mr. Lupin has other assignments to see to."

Teddy didn't actually have any more assignments, but he thought he'd got as much as he was going to get from Fifi LaFolle - she was starting to circle around and repeat herself - so he was glad for something handy to hang an ending on. He gathered his things - including Brimmann's logs - and stood up. "Thank you so much for talking to me," he said. "This has been a lot of help."

"I'm happy to help you, dear," Fifi said. "Lavender has told me about your parents." She leaned forward avidly. "It's a very romantic story."

Teddy froze and looked at Lavender, who was shaking her head miserably. He turned back to Fifi and said, "It's not particularly romantic. They died."

"Well, yes, that was a terrible ending, but that could be fixed..."

"Fifi," Lavender said harshly, "we discussed this. This is not yours."

"Hmph," Fifi said, then smiled at Teddy again. "It was romantic. You shouldn't pretend it wasn't."

Teddy felt queasy, but knew he'd never hear the end of a show of bad manners. He bowed. "Thank you, Miss LaFolle. Is there someplace I should escort you to?"

"Oh, I'm staying for a small gathering that Sir Nicholas has arranged."

Lavender waved her wand and all of the remaining items flew into a small satchel. The dog, which had been asleep at her feet, stood up and shifted eagerly from foot to foot. "Well," Lavender said, "I was actually going to join Professors Morse and Longbottom for a late dinner in Hogsmeade, and Desiree here might benefit from a walk as well. Would you care to walk to the greenhouses with me, Teddy?"

Teddy didn't think it was a particularly subtle hint that she wanted to speak to him privately, but Fifi seemed oblivious. "Sure," he said, and walked with her to the door of the study, feeling that he'd forgotten something. Just before he got to the door, he stopped. "Miss LaFolle?"

Fifi turned, her smile wide and friendly again. "Yes, dear?"

"I wonder... is there any way for you to sign a book?"

She looked positively delighted. "My assistant is able to produce my signature upon my explicit approval. Will that do?"

"Yes, Ma'am." Teddy dug into his book bag and brought out _The Lost Treasure_. He started to hand it to Fifi, then remembered that she couldn't very well take it, so handed it to Lavender instead.

Lavender took it, and held out her wand. "Miss LaFolle, what would you like to say to Teddy?"

"Is that how you want it signed?" Fifi asked. "To Teddy?"

Teddy shook his head. "No. To Dora, if you could. I think she'd like that."

Fifi's face grew soft, nearly living in its expression. "Very well," she said. "Lavender, sign it, _To Dora, who understands, and to Teddy, who believes. Love, Fifi LaFolle._ "

Lavender tapped it with her wand, and the inscription spread over the cover page. Teddy took the book back and read it - he'd never read his name and Mum's in the same place, both in the present tense - then returned it to his satchel and said, "Thank you."

She nodded.

Teddy walked Lavender outside. Desiree the dog stopped to do some less than fluffy business at the lake shore, and Lavender sighed deeply as she looked across the lake. "I did tell her about your parents, Teddy. I just told her it was the most romantic real story I knew. I think that's why she was so eager to meet you. She was keen to write it, but I think I talked her out of it. I told her that was yours, if it was anyone's. I'm sorry - I forget sometimes that she's a ghost. She seems so real. But she only does one thing, and I don't think it occurs to her that it would hurt anyone to have it turned into a cheap paperback novel. Especially if it's the same novel she's been writing since the mid-nineteen-seventies."

Teddy shrugged. "Well, it's a good story. I mean, the one she's been writing, not Mum and Dad's."

"They're both good stories. Fifi may not be fully present, but she does understand romance. It's all she is now."

"But she'd change the ending?"

"Probably. I'm afraid she'll never be appreciated by the finer class of literary critic." Lavender smiled, and tugged at Desiree's lead. Desiree had finished her business and was sniffing around at the lake, too close to the giant squid's reach. Lavender Vanished the evidence of the visit then shook her shoulders and said, "Well, we really ought to be getting to the greenhouses. I don't want to keep your professors waiting."

Teddy walked with her to the greenhouses, where Daniel, Professor Morse, Professor Longbottom, and Hannah were all waiting. Professor Longbottom told him to get inside before it was actually curfew, but they all walked away without checking to see if he obeyed.

He did, at least as far as going to the castle, but instead of going to his dormitory, he climbed to the top of the Astronomy Tower. Far below, he could see the five adults walking together, enjoying the night, laughing. He took the gold ring from the chain around his neck, sat down on the cold flagstones, and brought up a memory of his parents, together in the Muggle flat where Mum had lived undercover. It was the first time they'd read aloud to one another from Fifi's books, and the first time Dad had told her that he loved her, at least that way. In the memory, Mum was nearly glowing, she was so beautiful. Then they went on to read _Hadria's Hope_ to each other, and Teddy smiled. He supposed he didn't have to worry - Fifi LaFolle characters would never fall in love over something as pedestrian as reading a Fifi LaFolle book. They would have to be rescuing the Scroll of Soppiness from some ancient tomb where a bitter aristocrat had hidden it centuries before. It would be Mum's proper inheritance, but it could only be claimed when she found the true love of her life to retrieve it, and Dad wouldn't believe in it until, of course, he was swept away...

Teddy came out of the memory, laughing, then lay down and looked at the sky. He pulled the book from his satchel, opened it, and held it up to the stars. "There, Mum," he said. "Signed and all."

She didn't answer.

It was far after curfew when he got back to Gryffindor Tower, and he duly took five points from himself, as he'd been warned about it several times. He sat by the fire with Ruthless for a long time, doing homework and not talking. Behind them, Marie Weasley was holding court among the first years, laughing and joking. Victoire eventually found her way over to the fire. She had a letter in her hand that seemed to be from her father, and looked dejected, but didn't share the reason behind it. Instead, she stretched out on the floor between Teddy and Ruthless, making a perfect equilateral triangle (Teddy had the odd idea that she had mentally measured the space before placing herself into it), and started her Muggle Studies homework. Ruthless had got an Outstanding O.W.L. in the subject last year, and after a while, she offered to help. Teddy worked between them, not contributing, until they both disappeared up the girls' staircase.

Neil showed up in the Great Hall the next day at lunch, looking weary and bedraggled after his transformation. The whispers went around again. The _Charmer_ ran an article confirming the story - in Defense Against the Dark Arts, Honoria snapped, "It's not meant to be covered up this time, is it? And nothing I write is worse than the rumors." She had actually managed to do some background research - or Corky, who'd appointed himself her fact checker, had - on lycanthropy, and the article stressed that there was no danger at all. Over the next few days, Teddy saw people cautiously approach Neil, and a week after the full moon, he seemed to have a regular little knot of mates, though most of them weren't exactly at Marie Weasley's level of popularity.

In Care of Magical Creatures, Dapple continued to be enthusiastic and cheerful, much to Buckbeak's disappointment. Teddy and Donzo got a detention for being caught out late, just outside the library, when Peeves caused a great commotion, causing several teachers to come running, blocking off all of the paths that the Marauder's Map showed. Luckily, in the shadows, none of them noticed that Teddy still had feathers in his eyebrows.

All of this was in the background. At the forefront of Teddy's mind were the logs of Roderick Brimmann's ship, the _Accursed_ , which he read late into the night, when his other work was done. He got the feel of the cramped quarters, the wretched smell of the hold, the vastness of the open sea, the capriciousness of the mad captain whose words he was reading.

As September moved into October, Teddy felt he was ready to try the Maze again.


	9. Twists and Turns

**Chapter 9:**

 **Twists and Turns**

Teddy carefully finished his all of his homework before starting with the Maze. He also chose Friday night, in case time slipped again. He supposed he should ask Maddie about that, but found that he wanted to master it on his own, learn Brimmann's fate, then go to her and say, "Look what I've done with the Maze." Stupid, probably, but he couldn't help it. It wouldn't be very satisfying to say, "See what you've been helping me with all year? Well, I finished."

Once he finished the conclusion of an essay for Professor Morse (comparative analysis of several pain-killing ingredients), he put away all of his homework, picked up Checkmate, and went downstairs. Victoire was sitting by the fire, listlessly playing clock solitaire with an Exploding Snap deck. It blew up in her face as he reached her, coating her face and hair with fine ash. She wiped it away in slow strokes.

Teddy sat down beside her. "Are you all right?"

"Hmm? Yes."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. Fine." She frowned in a more normal, irritated way, and took a swipe at her face. "Stupid things."

"Hold still," Teddy said, and set Checkmate down. He tipped her face up, then pointed his wand at her. " _Abluo._ "

The ashes slid gently from her cheeks, which went quite red. "I don't think anyone's washed my face for me since Aimee came along," she said. "Thanks. I could have done it later."

Teddy checked for more ash in her hair, then let go of her face. "Would you mind watching Checkmate for me? I have an experiment to do, and I don't want her getting caught in it accidentally."

She raised her eyebrows. "What are you doing?"

"Just something for Robards," he said.

"Is it dangerous?"

"Not if you know what you're doing, but Checkmate hasn't got very far in her Defense studies yet."

"I don't know. James sent me a story. Checkmate seemed very proficient." She scooped Checkmate up. "By the way, he asked if you had any stories for him. Aunt Hermione told him you'd be busy this year, so he said he's not to pester you. But I think he supposed you'd be pining away if you didn't start writing yourself by now, and he's pouting that you haven't written anything for him."

Teddy sighed. "I'll get something together later. Could you give me the Checkmate story? I'll write him another chapter."

She nodded and turned her attention to the cat, kissing the tips of her ears and baby-talking in French. Checkmate squirmed, and Teddy wondered if Victoire's lips tickled.

He blinked and shook _that_ thought out of his head. This could easily become problematic. He'd have to find a new girlfriend - an _actual_ one - before the first Hogsmeade weekend. Victoire Weasley had no business occupying that particular niche in his imagination.

Perhaps Jane Hunter. Teddy had always liked her, but never known her particularly well. He decided to ask her out. Soon.

"So, you'll keep an eye on Checks?"

She nodded absently. "Bushy always likes their visits," she said. "I'll take her upstairs."

"Thank you." Teddy felt an absurd urge to pet her hair on his way back up to his dormitory, but he resisted it. He got to his room and closed the door. Worrying about girls wasn't going to helpful in dealing with the Daedalus Maze.

It was sitting on his desk, looking rich and pristine as it had when Maddie had put it into his care.

"I don't want to see myself," he said aloud. "I want to see Brimmann. Possibilities." He bit his lip. According to Maddie, the Maze had begun as a Divination tool, to show possible paths. However much it had gained over the years, its original function, like its original shape, still had to be there, just as Teddy's own blood continued to pump through his veins, no matter how he happened to change the body around it.

He just needed to start where history left off - with Brimmann's last known voyage. He would see how the possibilities branched off, come out of the Maze, then research what he'd seen before going back.

Simple.

Nothing fancy. Just using it as it was meant to have been used.

He raised his wand, said the incantation, and found himself in the crow's nest again, but this time, instead of the familiar, romantic ship from the _Tirza_ stories, he was aboard Brimmann's cramped, barely seaworthy craft. He could smell rotting food coming up from below decks, just as the logs had described it. In the water, not far off, was a small island, the last place to have seen Brimmann pass. The islanders had hidden while pirates came ashore and ransacked their food supplies, taking nearly half of what they'd saved.

Teddy climbed over the edge of the nest, and found himself on deck. The captain was at the wheel. Teddy examined him carefully for any resemblance to Fenrir Greyback, then approached him.

"What might have happened?"

The captain looked over his shoulder and nodded, then steered the ship around. Over the bow, Teddy could see the ocean flowing in bends and twists into the Maze.

"Left," Teddy said.

The ship went left. The other paths could wait. Today, he would explore one, and only one, and only as far as he could get out without using Ariadne's thread.

Along this path, the sky suddenly turned gray, churning, with lightning arcing between the clouds.

"Lash the sails!" someone cried, and there was the thunder of footsteps around him, though he saw no images. A wave rose up on the starboard side. Teddy looked into it, and he saw dozens of other ships, dozens of captains. A close one looked back at him. His face was bloody and dazed. The wave crashed over the deck and the images disappeared.

"Right," Teddy muttered, and the ship went to the right. Teddy found himself on a broken piece of wood, clinging to it among the waves as the ship sank nearby. The captain, across from him, continued to swim. Teddy followed. There was no land to head for.

The Maze went a fuzzy sort of gray, then there were other people in the water. The captain continued to swim away. Teddy moved among the injured and dead, trying not to touch them, remembering what had happened when he'd touched Mum the first time he'd tried the Maze.

"Help me," someone whispered.

"No, me," someone else echoed.

"Me, me, me..."

They didn't seem to see Teddy, but they were crowding him nonetheless. He moved backward easily through the water, against the current, then said, "Left" and found himself back in the storm, and "right," which took him back to the ship. Beyond the bow, more possibilities opened up. But he'd start with this one for now - a freak storm, a wreck. He'd need to find out about weather, and check Muggle shipwreck reports. It didn't feel right, and he suspected that he'd find nothing, but it was at least a theory to work with and either prove or disprove.

And he'd done it without dwelling on his own phantasms.

So far.

He looked up at the crow's nest and imagined himself in it, and a moment later, found himself there.

"Out," he whispered.

The Maze disappeared, and Teddy was back in his room. He checked his watch. He'd lost some time, but not much. It was ten-thirty.

He'd done it.

Pleased with himself, he took down a scroll and recorded what he'd seen as faithfully as possible. At the top, he drew the beginning of a map - starting at the ship, then left, then right. He didn't think there was any further to follow this path. If the ship had gone down, that was the answer.

He'd have to try another path next.

He didn't feel particularly sleepy, so he dug in his trunk for a Muggle notebook and started a story for James, even though he hadn't read the Checkmate story yet. This one would be about a princess on an island. It would -

Teddy blinked. Somehow, he must have fallen asleep, because he'd filled the notebook page not with one of the ridiculous stories he wrote for James, but with a clumsily drawn labyrinth. The center of it was a solid black box. The original lines showed paths that went to it, but without realizing what he was doing, he had drawn lines through them, building walls to block the way.

He tore the page out, crumpled it, and Incinerated it.

He slept again, dreaming of Brimmann's small, filthy ship. He was on it, but it was sailing through the Forbidden Forest. Hagrid was his guide.

"Now, yeh can see here, the Centaurs are stirred up... and righ' there, tha' was where yer mum found a place for Vivian..."

All of these stories were familiar to Teddy, so he leaned against the rail of the ship and just watched the forest. He saw a flicker of motion among the trees, then another. A tall, thin figure was walking along cheerfully.

"Dad!" he yelled.

Dad didn't answer. Teddy could see Sirius and James - Uncle Harry's father James - as well now, and a beautiful woman who he thought was Uncle Harry's mother. They all seemed very happy to be there, but they took no notice of Teddy, or the ship, or the fact that there was apparently enough water in the Forbidden Forest to sail on. All of them were gathered around someone smaller and frailer.

Then they disappeared.

Teddy heard the roar of water only a moment before the wave was upon them. He flattened himself on the floor of the ship as it was tossed toward the trees, and woke up when he was thrown from his bed to the floor of his room.

An owl was hooting softly nearby, holding out its leg, to which a letter was attached. It was from Uncle Harry.

Teddy rubbed his eyes and tried to shake the dream out of his head. It wasn't a sensible image, anyway.

The owl hopped up onto his bed, and Teddy half-expected Checkmate to bound up and try to engage it in battle, then remembered that he'd sent Checks over to Victoire. He took the envelope and Summoned some owl treats.

 _Dear Teddy,_ Uncle Harry had written, _I've arranged my yearly interference in Professor Robards' classes. I'll actually be taking the class over for a week this year instead of just guest lecturing, as he has personal business to attend to and would have needed a substitute teacher at any rate. If you'd care to have dinner in town the night I get here, let me know, and I'll arrange it with the Headmistress._

 _Al asked me to make sure you were quite all right as well, as he had dream about a monster chasing you. The children have missed your letters this year, though Hermione tried to explain about O.W.L. workloads._

Teddy bit his lip. The workload hadn't really been excessive yet. He'd just let time slip away from him, and now Al was having nightmares. "Nice job, Lupin," he muttered to himself. "Really spectacular." He went back to reading.

 _Phineas Nigellus told us that you had a visitor. He was quite disgusted with the spectacle, particularly the poodle. Disgusting Phineas is always a worthy enterprise, whatever your actual goal was (I look forward to finding out)._

 _I've attached a little story from James. I didn't miss part of it. It ends in the middle of a sentence on purpose. James seems to think you will have to finish the sentence at least, and send it back. Even if you just write to tell him that you're too busy for a story right now, I think he'd appreciate it. Your old godfather would appreciate hearing that you're all right as well - I find that I don't like the part of growing up that involves fewer letters, though I suppose it was inevitable, and I don't expect daily updates._

 _Let me know about dinner. I should get there on the evening of your first Hogsmeade weekend. I won't interfere with whatever young lady you're escorting this year, but perhaps I could meet you at Hagrid's when you come back._

 _Love,  
Uncle Harry_

Teddy rolled his eyes and wrote a quick note accepting dinner and apologizing for the lack of communication. Then he wrote to Al and told him not to worry, everything was fine. A flash of his time in the Maze went through his head, of the blocked-off labyrinth he'd drawn, of the strange dream, but those weren't the sorts of monsters Al would have in mind, and Teddy didn't have any desire to worry him further anyway. On a whim, he also wrote a personal note to Lily, telling her to keep an eye on James and Al, and giving her a little gossip on how well Marie was fitting in. Finally, he settled in to James's story, which was typical of the genre:

 _Once, Sirius went to Mexico. He and Buckbeak flew very far to get there, and landed on top of a peeramid (in Mexico, peeramids are flat on top). There was a jungle everywhere, but somewhere in the tactless deaths, there was a treasure with rubies and gold and wands and books. He especially needed one of the books, because Buckbeak suddenly forgot how to fly! They had to walk to the bottom of the peeramid, which made them very tired._

 _So they set out into the jungle, and Sirius_

The story stopped there.

Teddy smiled and found a piece of clean parchment, and re-wrote, _So they set out into the jungle and Sirius..._ He thought about it. _...did a Point-Me spell, which told him that he was headed west. Back in England, the Mystic Moonstone had told him that the treasure lay deeply buried in the place that the flames rose at sunset..._

Sirius found himself in a twisting, turning path in the jungle, with high walls of greenery on every side. He found himself trapped several times, once by a jaguar, but he turned into Padfoot and leapt over it, while Buckbeak clawed it down with one sharp talon. Finally, he made it to the cave, which was guarded by a spell he couldn't quite work out. Teddy smiled and wrote, _He raised his wand and_

He left it there. Let James figure it out. He liked the treasure parts.

It was mid-morning by the time he finished, and he supposed he'd best hurry if he meant to get breakfast. In the Common Room, a third year boy was picking at several green pustules that had erupted all over his face. Teddy stopped.

"What happened?"

"Victoire Weasley threw something at me," he said.

"And why did she do that?"

"I don't know. She's crazy."

Teddy ground his teeth. "What caused her to be crazy?"

"I wasn't even talking to her! I just said some girls got crazy sometimes. You know how they get - like screeching Veela."

"Five points from Gryffindor," Teddy said. "And if I could give you a detention, I would. Go to Madam Pomfrey. It's just a Wheeze. She'll know what to do about it."

He shook his head and went out without waiting to see if the boy did as he was told. Ruthless was coming up the corridor, and changed direction cheerfully to walk with him.

"You're nearly running into lunch," she said.

"I know."

"What are you doing for Hogsmeade weekend?"

"I'm guessing nothing nonsensical."

"We could still go into town together. I need some Potions ingredients, and we both need to eat."

"I don't know. I was thinking of asking Jane to go with me."

"You'd trade reliable companionship for a chance at a snog?" Ruthless rolled her eyes dramatically.

"It was nice to have both," Teddy admitted.

Ruthless frowned. "Teddy, I was just making a little joke. Don't get maudlin on me. What's going on with you?"

"Why does everyone ask that?"

"You've missed two games, you're not getting any jokes, you haven't been to Hagrid's for tea at all, the other people in your year say you haven't been talking in classes, and I haven't seen you in the Common Room at night since we did our homework together three weeks ago."

Teddy stopped and blinked. "Really? I've been doing that?"

"Yes."

"Oh. I didn't realize. I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize. Just tell me what's going on."

"Nothing. I'm just working on Robards' assignment."

"For someone who'd rather eat flobberworms than become an Auror, you're awfully devoted to this."

"I really didn't realize I was doing that. I promise. No pirates today. Are you going to eat again, or did you just want to bask in the pleasure of my company?"

"I'll bask until we get to the Great Hall," she said, "then I have Quidditch practice. I was going up to get my things, but I can just Summon them."

Teddy made an effort to connect as he walked down the stairs with Ruthless, listening to her tales of the Quidditch team and her frustrations with a particularly knotty Transfiguration essay. She was keeping her no-boy rule, though she said that if Randall Knott asked her out again, she'd have to curse him to the other side of the world so he'd learn to take no for an answer. Teddy offered to let her say they were going out, as an excuse, but she said that would somewhat defeat the point of teaching Randall the meaning of "no."

They stopped at the doors to the Great Hall, and Ruthless smiled at him. "Well, I'll see you later. Because you _will_ be in the Common Room, or I'm going to Summon your parchment-based friend, find you on it, and _drag_ you out. Clear enough?"

"Clear enough."

"Good." She tiptoed to kiss him, then seemed to remember that she wasn't doing that this year and backed away, looking confused. "I'll see you later," she mumbled.

Teddy sighed and went into the Great Hall for breakfast.

A blond Bludger slammed into him as he approached the table. Victoire had her head down, and was charging out like a bull in an arena. She pushed him aside with no preliminaries and disappeared.

Teddy looked over at the table. Marie held up her hands helplessly. An untouched plate was beside her. Teddy went to it. "Is this Victoire's?"

She nodded. "She's in a weird mood. I'd steer clear."

"Has she eaten?"

"No."

Teddy took several rashers of bacon and wrapped them in a napkin. He took a little more for himself, then followed Victoire. The main door was ajar and he wasn't surprised, when he pushed it further open, to see her running down the hill toward the Whomping Willow and Hagrid's hut beyond it.

He took a deep breath, shook his head, and followed her down.

He lost sight of her when she went down the hill toward the Whomping Willow, but he could tell where she was by the swaying of the branches as it tried to reach her. The ground rose again, and he could see her, hair blown back in the wind, head down as she made a straight line toward Hagrid's. Teddy quickened his own pace.

The Willow made an apathetic grab at him (it had been lethargic since Teddy had destroyed the tunnel under it during his third year) and he ducked it easily. Professor Longbottom had been trying to rouse it, and Teddy had tried to help him last year, but no ministration they'd been able to think of had done any good. It had lost its purpose. Teddy imagined that it was depressed, but hadn't quite had the nerve to propose this idea to Professor Longbottom.

Victoire turned right and dipped out of sight again, but now Teddy could see the path she was following. It led to Buckbeak's paddock. Victoire was only in her first year of Care of Magical Creatures, so she wouldn't be observing Buckbeak and Dapple for school, but she knew them as well as she knew any of the family pets, and Teddy guessed she was just going to them for an understanding ear.

When he caught up with her, she was standing on the bottom slats of the fence, three dead rats hanging from one hand. She tossed one skyward as Teddy came up beside her. Dapple made an enthusiastic jump at it, but missed. Unconcerned, he scooped it off the ground and cantered into the shadows, munching happily. Victoire leaned forward and bowed to Buckbeak. Buckbeak bowed back, but he looked very discouraged with his experiment in parenting. She tossed him the remaining rats, then cleaned her hands with a flick of her wand. She sighed heavily and put her head on top of her arms. Her hair swung forward and hid her face entirely.

Teddy climbed up beside her and handed her the food he'd brought. "Just some bacon," he said when she turned to look. "Thought you might be hungry."

"Thanks," she muttered, and took a bit of it. She chewed it thoughtfully, and watched the hippogriffs.

"What was that about?" Teddy asked her. "I mean, with Marie. I saw that twit in your year who was complaining about screeching Veela. Docked him five points."

She smiled faintly. "Thank you."

Teddy shrugged and tossed a chicken leg to Buckbeak. "My first year, everyone was talking about werewolves. I think Greyback cured them of that. But I remember."

"I always forget about that," Victoire said. "I guess you know what it feels like."

"So what happened with Marie?"

She frowned. "I told her, and she _didn't care._ She said I was starting to sound like Grandmere on rampage."

"Oh."

"I've always been friends with my sisters. Why is Marie being like this?"

"I don't know. Maybe she's just trying to be... I don't know," Teddy finished. He tossed a bit of bacon to Dapple. "I don't have sisters. I mean, except Lily, in a way, but we'll never be at Hogwarts at the same time. I don't know what that's supposed to be like. You should ask your dad. He had a lot of his brothers with him, didn't he?"

Victoire ground her teeth. "I don't want to ask Dad."

"Is this about that letter you got? You've been moping around."

She was quiet so long that he didn't think she'd answer, then shrugged and threw the rest of the food he'd brought in for the hippogriffs. Buckbeak nudged Dapple over and let him get the choice bits. Victoire sighed again. "Story Shacklebolt asked me to go out," she said.

This answer was so unexpected that Teddy was momentarily flummoxed. The idea of Victoire going out with anyone was off-kilter at any rate. She was the same age Teddy had been when he'd first gone out with Ruthless, but that wasn't at all the same thing. He was sure of that. The entire notion was troubling, and he started to say so, but stopped himself when he realized that Victoire probably would think it _was_ the same, and, Veela or no, he'd seen her with a short temper and a handful of knives. He braced himself and treated it as though it was as serious as her mood would indicate. "What's wrong with that?" he asked. "Story's... Story's a good bloke."

She grimaced, then frowned at him, seeming to expect something. When he didn't give it to her, she said, "Before school, Dad told me I couldn't go with anyone until after I've taken my O.W.L.s. I owled to ask him if he couldn't just think it over, and he _still said no!_ " She climbed down and leaned her back against the fence. "It's not fair," she said. "Everyone else will be kissed before me."

Teddy jumped down beside her. "Is that all? Really?"

She gave him a very irritated glare. "Easy for you to say. You get kissed by _everyone_."

"I've kissed three girls," Teddy protested. "Just Ruthless and Lizzie and Laura. Three is a small part of everyone."

"Still." She let out another sigh. "Why shouldn't I go out? I'm pretty enough."

Teddy raised his eyebrows. "You know that's why, don't you?"

"What?"

"Victoire, you're so pretty, I think your dad's worried that if he lets you go out, you'll never have time to do anything else."

"You think I'm pretty?"

"Oh, please. Everyone thinks you're pretty. You think you're pretty."

She pushed her hair behind her ear. "All right. But Story's the only one to ask. Dad's got nothing to worry about. The boys never ask me for anything. They just - "

" - follow you around and do as you tell them," Teddy finished, thinking of her little army of pranksters.

She nodded emphatically, as if this sort of thing was simply to be expected, nothing unusual at all. "Exactly."

Teddy laughed. "That doesn't even strike you as a strange answer, does it?"

"Well, they don't do _everything_ I tell them." She looked up shyly. "If I told you to kiss me, you'd completely ignore me."

Too late, a great, braying alarm sounded in Teddy's head. He moved off to one side as far as he could without offending her (which really wasn't very far) and said, "I wouldn't ignore you, I just wouldn't do it."

She took a step toward him. "Why not?"

There were a hundred reasons not to kiss Victoire. A thousand, maybe, or a million. The fact that Teddy couldn't quite think of any of them just now wasn't important.

 _Christmas,_ his mind tossed up. _The first Christmas at Uncle Harry's after breaking up with her would be horrible._

Relieved that he'd thought of this, he took a deep breath. "I'm not going to kiss you just because you told me to."

"Why _would_ you?"

 _And trips to Shell Cottage. They'd be quite uncomfortable, if I were allowed to visit at all._

Somewhere, echoing in his mind, he heard a bark of laughter.

"Well, I..."

Victoire looked at him, her eyebrows drawn in aggressively.

He shrugged. "I don't know. I suppose if I were to kiss you, which I'm not going to do, it would be because you're cute."

" _Cute?_ "

"You know what I mean."

She bit her lip, and it was glistening in the sunshine, and it occurred to Teddy that he really ought to leave _right now._ There was certainly some sort of pressing business back at the castle. This was entirely absurd. Instead, he stayed where he was, and Victoire said, "Just once, Teddy. Please. I won't bother you about it again. I just don't want to be the last girl in my year to be kissed."

When she put it like that, it sounded reasonable, and it wouldn't be particularly chivalrous to refuse. He swallowed and said, "All right. _Once._ But if your dad finds out, he'll kill me." _And he'll never let you come camping again, and it will be ridiculous during the summer, and..._

He swallowed and put one finger on either side of her chin, just as if she were Laura or Lizzie or Ruthless, except that she wasn't, and as he watched her light blue eyes slip shut, he thought, _This is Victoire,_ and then he kissed her.

At once, the world seemed to close in, like the walls in the Maze, but it all seemed brightly lit and friendly. None of the paths harbored monsters. He closed his eyes and kissed her again, more like a real kiss this time, with his hands fully on her face, and hers in his hair and...

Something nudged his ear and he opened his eyes to see a dead, bloodied rat. He drew away. Dapple was bobbing his head cheerfully.

Victoire opened her eyes, and Teddy remembered dozens more reasons why this had been a spectacularly bad idea. Blood from the rat dripped down onto his shoulder. He let go of Victoire entirely. "I'll take that as a sign," he said.

She nodded. "I, er... I promised Professor Longbottom that I'd help re-pot the Honking Daffodils. I'll go." She took a few steps away, then looked at Dapple and shook her head.

"Good save, Dapple," Teddy muttered. "Thanks a lot."

Dapple jumped, flapped his wings, and flew in a clumsy circle. Buckbeak cantered out and nipped at his rear leg to prompt him down before he flew too high. Disappointed, the younger hippogriff looked down at his talons when he reached the ground, then slumped off to the shadows. Buckbeak looked at Teddy with a species of helplessness.

"Give him a break, will you?" Teddy said. "He's doing his best."

Buckbeak nodded, and went after his son. A moment later, Teddy saw him demonstrating the proper, stable way to hold his wings in flight, and Dapple did his best to mimic it. Teddy stayed to watch for a long time, until Hagrid came back from Hogsmeade and invited him in for tea.


	10. The Undelivered Message

**Chapter 10:**

 **The Undelivered Message**

At dinner, Victoire was aggressively normal toward him, even throwing a Weasley Wheeze at him (an exploding marshmallow chick), though she looked away quickly rather than helping him wipe it off of his face. No one seemed to notice anything amiss. Ruthless sat beside him and told him about a particularly good defense spell she'd found in Mum's book which she wanted to try out as soon as she found someone willing to be temporarily rendered magic-less.

"That was one of Mum's?" Teddy asked, surprised.

"No, just in the book. I think it was older. I've heard of it - Spell-Binding - but no one uses it anymore. Too many defenses against it; made it not worth it. But now that no one uses it, no one learns the defenses. So maybe it can be used again."

"That almost made sense," Teddy said. "Except that Granny told me that no one did Spell-Binding anymore because it never worked properly in the first place."

Ruthless looked disappointed. "Well, it's tricky, but..." She sighed. "I suppose if it had worked, the Aurors would have used it against the Death Eaters, wouldn't they?"

Teddy nodded, thinking that it would have been quite convenient if Mum had taught it to Dad, and Dad had used it on Dolohov instead of tossing his wand to Dean. Then Dad wouldn't have got hurt, and Mum wouldn't have been so distracted that Bellatrix could creep up on her.

Ruthless shrugged and moved on to a brief note she'd found on magical seafaring, which she thought might be useful in Teddy's search for Brimmann. During this, Teddy happened to look up at Victoire, who was frowning at him, her lips pressed tightly together.

He dreamed of being aboard Tirza's ship again that night, but dearly hoped that it wasn't a dream his parents were eavesdropping on, as it had featured Ruthless as the captain and Victoire as the navigator, and for some reason, they only had one skimpy uniform between them, and Teddy's job as cabin boy was to take it back and forth, and help them in and out of it.

The next day, he asked Jane Hunter if she'd go to Hogsmeade with him at the end of the week. She looked suspicious, but said yes.

"Well, it's a clean sweep of the Houses, anyway," Donzo said that night, Summoning several books to the nook in the Restricted Section where they were working by the light of a rock Teddy had charmed to glow. "Ruthless in Gryffindor, Laura in Hufflepuff, Lizzie in Ravenclaw, and now you've got a Slytherin girl."

"Yes, that was just the point," Teddy said. He pulled a few books off the top of Donzo's pile. They weren't spell books, or books from the Marauders' Animagus collection; they were books about birds, opened to the articles on hawks. Teddy scanned the first few, then said, "I kissed Victoire."

Donzo looked up, not quite following. "Was it the first time?"

"Yes! First, last... you know. Just an idiotic thing."

"Hmm. I'd reckoned she'd been after you with mistletoe since she could walk." He shrugged, unconcerned about the subject, and peeled a rather thin book from a pile on a chair. A gold bird on the cover was flapping its wings, and the title was _Hunter, Messenger, Omen: The Magical Properties of the Common Hawk._ "Have you read this?"

"McGonagall said not to pay a lot of attention to how other people read the symbols."

Donzo shrugged. "It might trigger something for you. It's interesting, anyway. I didn't know how much magic there was in messages. They used to use hawks to deliver messages sometimes, and one of them got caught in a magical eddy for a hundred years because it didn't get its message to the person who was supposed to get it. One day, it just blew out of a windstorm and gave it to the bloke's great-grandson, then died."

"That's comforting." Teddy took it and flipped to the page Donzo had been holding open. It was a sensationalized version of the story, and the author had put a warning into a red box to never send messages lightly, as messages which were undelivered or garbled could take on vast power as they rolled along, and would often find their way to an intended recipient through his or her weakest point. Teddy rolled his eyes - he could just imagine a note passed between girls in Divination, dropped on the floor, gathering power to possibly make one of them giggle inappropriately on some later date. Dreadful power, indeed.

"Why _is_ it a hawk for you? Just because of your dad's memory when he was little?"

"I don't know. Probably. Why is your Patronus a raccoon?"

Donzo laughed. "When I was very little and I lived in the States, there was a raccoon who used to travel with the Pondhoppers. He just followed them around at first, but eventually, they sort of adopted him, like a dog. They called him Mask. When I came along, he took to me for some reason."

"You probably dropped food for him."

"Quite possibly." Donzo went back to his books. "At any rate, when I was about two, some genius stagehand thought I'd bring a good ransom. Went to grab me out of a play pen in the middle of a show. Mask jumped at him and bit him, and he screamed, and the day was saved for fans of great music everywhere."

"And you remember that?"

"Well, no. But I've heard the story enough; it must have stuck. And I have a picture of me slobbering all over the poor thing."

"What, you mean it's not your _own memory_?" Teddy grinned, and Donzo gave him a sheepish grin. Teddy laughed. "Honestly, you actually even have a good Animagus name already. You've got to do this."

"Why?"

"Because it's fun. And I have that reliably from other people's memories."

"Of course."

They spent the next hour going through the books on hawks. Teddy paid attention to their wing span and thought about Buckbeak trying to teach Dapple how to fly; Donzo kept trying to make comparisons between Teddy and hawks, some serious, most not ("Well, hawks are Gryffindors, definitely - no room for a brain in that thick skull"). Teddy started Summoning books on raccoons, and Donzo cheerfully bent his comparisons to himself ("Look, I wash my face all the time, too! It's practically a mirror into my soul!"). Teddy didn't think it would take much more persuasion to actually get Donzo to try the spell.

They left the library at two o'clock, when the Marauder's Map showed Filch and Mr. Norris headed for them ("When does he _sleep_?" Donzo muttered, Banishing the books back to the shelves), and after getting Donzo safely back to Ravenclaw, Teddy returned to his room. The Fat Lady wasn't particularly thrilled to be awakened, but she had yet to turn any Gryffindor in for curfew-breaking, so Teddy wasn't worried. He quickly put his finished homework in order for classes tomorrow, then dipped into the Maze for another Brimmann hunt. This one showed a path where he went into retirement on an island, but was murdered by locals when they found out who he was. The edges had an odd, fuzzy look to them, and Teddy thought that meant the Maze considered this a much more tentative notion than some of the others. Still, when he left, he carefully noted everything he'd seen. He wasn't sure how he was going to research these possibilities, but maybe there would be a clue that crossed from one to the other that would tie everything all up neatly.

He went to bed thinking of little but Brimmann and his unlikely island life, but dreamed again of the ship in the forest, with Hagrid steering it along, pointing out various landmarks along the way. "This 'ere's where yer Dad an' Mum brought the cubs through... over there, Sirius Black an' James Potter tried to raise billywigs... yer granny and granddad used ter come out here for a bit o' privacy..."

Teddy stood at the prow, dressed as a pirate, looking out through a scope. As Hagrid mentioned things, he could see the people - Granny dancing barefoot in a meadow while Granddad played a guitar, the Marauders and a swarm of billywigs, Mum and Maddie running down a path. All of them shimmered insubstantially, like ghosts among the living. Teddy shimmered as well. A hawk circled overhead. It was carrying a message, but it didn't come close enough for Teddy to see. It was solid, like the trees, like the ship, like the figures walking nearby, smiling, gathered around Uncle Harry, who was quite distinctly _not_ smiling. He was bloody and filthy. Sirius and Dad and James and Lily guarded him. The leaves rustled. In their whisper, the words, "Tell Teddy..." seemed to carry through the night, but there was nothing to follow it.

"Nothing to see here!" Hagrid called out cheerfully, and the boat suddenly swung around, hard to starboard, the trees looming like enemy cannons. Teddy saw the huge tree in their path just before they struck it, and then he was falling...

He woke up when he hit the floor. He'd managed to put out one hand to break the fall, but it hadn't done a very good job. A few bright spots of blood were on the wood, and Teddy could feel his nose swelling.

Perfect.

He tried to morph the break back into place, but it didn't work especially well.

" _Episkey_ ," someone whispered, and something cool brushed against Teddy's shoulder.

The break didn't heal, but it did stop hurting. Teddy went to his mirror and pointed his wand at his face. " _Episkey,_ " he said.

It healed.

He wiped the blood away, gathered his books and homework, and went downstairs for breakfast.

"Lupin, I'd like to see you after class."

Teddy, who'd meant to head down to supper with Maurice and Corky, then go on to Hufflepuff for a game (he was rehearsing possible scenarios with Victoire, should she attempt to mention things he would prefer not to discuss), groaned and waved Corky on. Robards waited until all of the Slytherins were gone, then moved to Corky's desk and sat down. "Brown hair," he said. "Circles under the eyes, pale skin, you didn't laugh when Atkinson Charmed the picture of the vampire to - er - show off its assets - "

"You saw that?"

"I don't care what you do with your books. You own them. If you lads want to explain that sort of thing to your children someday when they're flipping through your Hogwarts books, be my guest." Robards smiled, then let it fade into concern. "Teddy, I saw your mum through a year when she looked extraordinarily like you do now. I've seen you discouraged in the past, but this has been going on for weeks."

"I'm not discouraged!"

"Do an old man a favor - morph."

Teddy concentrated as hard as he could, meaning to turn his hair Mum's favorite shade of pink - it bothered Robards, but if he was going to be nosy, he deserved it - but judging from Robards' lack of reaction, he hadn't accomplished his goal. He frowned and held out his hand, willing the skin to develop a checkered pattern. Simple things, really. A faint darkening occurred, then faded.

"That's what I thought," Robards said. "Your mum was like that for months. Do you need help?"

"No!" Teddy glared at his hand, and the skin finally cooperated, turning itself into a chessboard. "See? I'm fine. Mum lived through it as well, and look how brilliantly it turned out on the other side."

Robards seemed alarmed by this, but didn't say anything to it directly. "I've noticed that you're doing a lot of work on the Brimmann case. Your last three essay topics have all been related to it, and Fifi LaFolle's assistant told me that was the reason for her visit. Is that what's bothering you? If it's frustrating you, stop. I'm not going to reward you for jeopardizing your health or your marks in O.W.L. year - "

"I'm fine."

"Look, your mum - "

"My mum is dead," Teddy said. "Leave her out of it."

"Teddy - "

"You act like you were some great friend of hers, but you hardly knew her, and when you did, you were only trying to - " Teddy stopped, his face hot. He'd seen some of Mum's friendship with Robards on Dad's ring, and he knew she'd respected him, but he also knew that everyone had thought Robards was out to make her his mistress... and everyone wasn't wrong. Teddy hadn't understood what was happening at first, but he'd caught onto it soon enough. Everyone had. Mum's friend Sanjiv had known and even _told_ her, and -

"I'm going to ignore that for now," Robards said. "Consider it an early birthday present. Are you sleeping, Teddy?"

"Yes."

"Are you eating enough?"

"I'm fine."

"Are you dreaming?"

Teddy swallowed and looked away.

"That's what I thought," Robards said. "Anything you want to talk about?"

Teddy thought about the ship, slipping ghostlike through the Forbidden Forest, while dead men who had once been living boys together moved cheerfully along at the fringes of his vision, surrounding Uncle Harry. He shook his head.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. It's just stupid nightmares. They don't mean anything. May I go?"

Robards sighed. "All right, Teddy. Go on."

Teddy stalked up to dinner, then went to the game with very little interest in the adventure Frankie and Tinny had dreamed up (it involved a runaway lorry, a city bus, and "Wings's" airplane). Victoire sat awkwardly by Story the whole time, and at one point, Teddy fantasized taking a swing at Story, breaking his glasses, and throwing him across the room. This alarmed him enough to make his hands shake - the idea that he was thinking of beating up a friend, even a marginal friend like Story Shacklebolt, was unwelcome. _Wrath_ , he reminded himself. _Do penance._ Rebecca Nolan, a first year Ravenclaw that Story had invited, seemed to need help, so Teddy adjusted her stats for her and explained what she'd need to do to recuperate over a few turns after a failed attack on a mugger. By the time he'd finished, his hands were still and the strange, irrational burst of violent anger had passed. He wasn't even sure why it was there. Story hadn't done anything to deserve it.

"What's that scar from?" Rebecca asked, pointing at Teddy's hand.

Teddy looked down. His hand was open, and she was pointing at the odd scar on his palm, where a large pebble had got caught in Dad's ring. Teddy had been trapped in a forest fire at the time, trying to rescue Frankie and Tinny. He'd crawled into a clearing and passed out, and dreamed vividly of his mother and Prongs and Padfoot living in the Marauder's Map, and of Dad sitting beside him in the burning wood. He'd been bruised, cut, scraped, and nearly killed by smoke that day. None of the other cuts or scrapes had left scars, but that pebble must have dug very deeply into his hand, even though it hadn't seemed sharp. He could see the faint outline of Dad's ring circling a flat white spot near the place where his life line joined his love line in a companionable rope of creases. He shrugged. "Just a weird cut," he said. "It wasn't Healed soon enough, I guess."

Rebecca appeared to be satisfied with the answer, and moved away from him when Tinny told her to roll to regain some hit points.

He couldn't really concentrate on his homework when he got back to his room. Ruthless and Robards had both noticed him acting oddly. He'd kissed Victoire and was now having violent fantasies about the boy who'd asked her out. He couldn't get the Animagus spell right despite a great deal more help than the Marauders had ever got.

"That's it," he muttered to Checkmate, who mewed, then turned over and went back to sleep. "I'm finding out what that stupid dream is about."

He raised his wand at the Maze and said, _"Sulci Numine."_

He'd fully expected to find Uncle Harry waiting for him at the beginning of the Maze, standing there with a list of answers in his hand. Instead, he found Frankie Apcarne, thirteen years old and looking quite crazed with his search for the soul of a Demented man. He gave Teddy the obstinate, truculent look that had been so common that year, then turned and stalked away toward the Maze, which was made from the trees of an overgrown Forbidden Forest. They were laced through with the strange white vines that Frankie had found, and smoke rested in the paths like a heavy white blanket.

"Frankie?" Teddy called. "Frankie, where are you?"

But Frankie - at least as a guide - had disappeared. He was lying motionless and bloody on the Forest floor. Tinny was right beside him, and as Teddy watched, his own younger self, eyes red and face filthy, lay down on top of both of them, trying to protect them from the smoke. His hands were grasped in fists. He nearly dropped his wand, and Dad's ring, which was in the other hand. He made a wild grab for it, then fell into unconsciousness as a thin shadow appeared in the smoke. It was Dad. He looked up.

Teddy shook his head. "Not this dream. The other one."

Dad nodded and stood up (though in the image of the dream, he _also_ remained at Teddy's side). He went further into the smoke, then turned down a path. Teddy followed him, then he wasn't in the Forest at all anymore. Instead, he was in a room in Gryffindor Tower, where four boys were hunched over a piece of parchment. They were laughing. Dad was drawing. Sirius and James were making bawdy jokes. Peter Pettigrew fretted over runes.

Teddy looked at Dad, not understanding, but the guide Dad was gone, replaced by Sirius, who went through a non-existent arch in the wall and down another corridor of the Maze. Now, Teddy was in a black room with a single table, where six men in another time were Charming the first Maze. Phineas Nigellus, who had a grin exactly like his great-great-grandson's, stood back from a spell and said, "Gentlemen - and Percival, of course - we've brought something new into the world."

"I don't understand," Teddy said. "This isn't my dream."

The scene didn't change. A red-headed man who Teddy recognized from his earlier trip as Percival Dumbledore shook his head. "I don't know, Phineas. What just happened isn't possible. How can we see what we weren't there to see? What no one was there to see?"

A short, compact man with dark hair brushed this off like a horse batting off a fly. Teddy blinked - this had to be Gordon Burke; he could have been Maurice in a Victorian costume. "It's followed connections," he said. "This is what Dedalus wanted it to do in the first place." He nodded to a very short man with a sharp gray beard. "It's succeeded beyond all expectations..."

The guide had become Phineas, who gave Teddy Sirius's devil-may-care smile and led him onward, through other groups of witches and wizards, all of them bent over some sort of mischief or other. Wizards in a desert colony tried a potion to make the sand bloom; wizards in wide ruffs set up a private magical performance for a queen with a powdered face; witches plotted to place a king on the Scottish throne; a lone wizard came out of the woods with a notion to find the High King. Teddy barely got glimpses of these. Phineas had other priorities, which also didn't seem to coincide with Teddy's question. He turned again - Teddy realized that he was hopelessly lost and would have to use Ariadne's Thread to get out - and Teddy found himself in the great hall of a manor house. Three young men were studying near the fire. One had a piece of wood, another a loom, and the third, a box of stones. They were speaking, but they were far enough in the past that Teddy couldn't understand them; the language the spoke was closer to German than to English. Phineas looked at Teddy significantly.

Obediently, Teddy studied the brothers. The tallest had a cocky, arrogant look to him. The one with the stones was studious and sallow. The one at the loom had a shock of unruly black hair, like -

"Uncle Harry!" Teddy said.

The brother didn't look up, but when Teddy turned to look at Phineas again, he was gone, and in his place, finally, was Uncle Harry. The Invisibility Cloak that James liked to play with was draped over his arm. He opened it, and invited Teddy under it.

Together, they walked on, and the walls became trees again, and Teddy could see James - the first - and his wife Lily, and Dad, and Sirius, all around them. Dad turned and said something, but the wind snatched it up. It seemed to have shape and form. A bird swooped down and caught it, and flew away with it.

A hawk.

Teddy looked at Uncle Harry.

He didn't say anything.

The world kept moving around them, and Teddy was in the clearing again, the one where he'd nearly died his first year, only it wasn't overgrown with white plants. A tall man with white skin and red eyes unfolded himself from the shadows, and his wand came up and he said, " _Ava -_ "

"Home!" Teddy yelled, and Ariadne's Thread yanked him backward, through everything again, finally throwing him out onto the floor of his room in Gryffindor Tower.

He took a deep, shaky breath. A message. All of it was about a message. Some message from Dad that Uncle Harry had forgotten about.

Teddy would just have to ask about it.

It was from Dad.

It wouldn't be anything dangerous.

Teddy felt like a stone had been lifted from his shoulders. Whatever message had been forgotten was just from Dad, through Uncle Harry, and Uncle Harry could just pass it on when he came. It didn't explain everything Teddy had seen in his dream, but sometimes, dreams were just dreams, as he was reminded over the next few days, as his dreams became light and frivolous again. He spent time on the island he'd imagined for his parents, sitting in the garden with them and talking about his girl troubles (in his dreams, Mum laughed a great deal about him kissing Victoire, which somehow made it less embarrassing). He flew with Sirius and James looking down on a calm ocean with no Maze-lines in it. The woman he took for Lily Potter was also there, and, even better, Fred Weasley, who was even more amused than Mum about the incident with Victoire, and kept threatening to get a message to Bill. He also dreamed of Buckbeak and Dapple, so fully real that he nearly went down to Hagrid's upon waking up because he thought he was meant to have a lesson flying Dapple. He was halfway there before he realized it had been a dream.

In waking hours, he felt more cheerful and stronger. He watched a Quidditch practice, during which Ruthless got into a screaming match with the captain of the team, and turned out to be right. He went to tea at Hagrid's with Roger Young and Maurice, who'd both asked to curry Dapple. Teddy himself chose to curry Buckbeak, who seemed grateful for the attention. He nearly asked Hagrid if he could take a flight, but the afternoon was short, and night was starting to fall. The moon was waxing, so it wasn't entirely dark, but Teddy thought a first flight really ought to be sunlit.

Of course, the waxing of the moon brought him back to Neil, and the room behind Professor Morse's dungeon. Professor Morse let him in after supper on a Sunday night and helped him chop the wolfsbane. Daniel came along a bit later and joined them.

"Nothing wrong with my knife hand," he said, grinning.

Professor Morse frowned. "Nothing _wrong_ with the rest."

Daniel raised a hand in surrender. "I have to watch my wording," he confided to Teddy, then went back to chopping. "I asked Neil if I could study his blood this month."

"What?" Teddy asked. "What do you mean?"

"I brought my microscope. I wanted to see if there were any cellular changes with the moon phases."

Teddy frowned. "Any what?"

"Changes in the little things we're all made from," Professor Morse said. "I should lend you some of Daniel's books. You might find them interesting."

"Oh. Were there? Serl... er... changes?"

"Cellular. Not a thing. There's nothing abnormal at all about Neil's blood. Type A-positive. There may be some genetic abnormalities - I don't have the equipment I need - but nothing glaring, and there's no change with the lunar cycle."

"All this because he didn't believe us about it being Curse-borne." Professor Morse winked, then scraped a pile of chopped wolfsbane off the table into a box and picked up another plant.

"I believed you," Daniel said. "But I wondered what the mechanism was. How the Curse worked. What it _did_ to make the physical changes."

"I don't think you can spot things like that when the change is magical," Professor Morse said.

Teddy finished his plant and started another. "Could you fit my hand under your microscope? I could morph while you watch."

Daniel's eyes lit up, and Professor Morse laughed. "You have a friend for life, Teddy," she said.

"Unfortunately, I don't know if I really could fit your hand under it. Have you ever seen a microscope? I have one of the old fashioned ones."

"I've never seen one," Teddy said.

Daniel did a final cut, then dashed off. He came back a moment later with a square black box and set it on the table. "I have much better ones that work on electricity," he said, "but of course, they don't work here. This one was my great-grandmother's. She worked as a technician in a laboratory. I rescued it from the attic when I started reading medicine." He opened the case and drew out a strange black metal contraption, with a tube rising up from a curved arm, all resting on a heavy base. "Cho, would you mind?"

Professor Morse flicked her wand at a tilted mirror in the base, and it sent light upward.

"It works in the sunlight without magic," Daniel said, "but in here, I'd need an electric light, or a bit of help." He fished for two thin pieces of glass, then said, "Excuse me," and yanked out a few strands of Teddy's hair. He put them between the glass bits, then slid them into the scope. "Have a look."

Interested, Teddy peeked down the tubular scope that Daniel indicated. Three scaly logs appeared in a circle of light. "Is that my _hair_?"

"Neat, isn't it? Want to have a look at the wolfsbane?"

Teddy nodded, and the three of them spent the next half hour looking at the wolfsbane, at some pickled murtlap, at a drop of Teddy's blood, at nearly everything they could find that Daniel could fit on a slide. Finally, Professor Morse consulted her watch and said that they needed to finish the potion before Teddy's curfew.

"You've got to take this up to Ravenclaw," Teddy said. "Of course, they might try to keep it. What is it for?"

Daniel picked up a bottle of dragon's bile and started measuring it into several small phials (it had to be added in specific increments). "Mainly what we were doing. But when you look at things like that, you can see what causes illnesses sometimes, and then you know what to do about them."

They continued the conversation, and Teddy went to bed thinking about small life forms that caused diseases, and he was still thinking of them when he met Neil after breakfast to start the month's dosing. Neil was as morose as he'd been last month, but it seemed more normal. The other Slytherin first years were planning an adventure on the grounds while the older students were in Hogsmeade on Saturday, and he'd be stuck in France, preparing to transform.

"Well... you'll get to see your Mum Evvie and Dad Nate, though," Teddy said.

"I guess." Neil sighed. "I sort of wish there weren't any werewolves, though. Then Mum Evvie and Dad Nate would be fine, and I'd have my real mum and dad." He gave a self-conscious shrug. "Sorry."

"Why? I'm on your side."

"I want to go back in time and punch whoever started this curse on the nose," Neil said.

"That'd be a trick."

"It was someone in Greece. Some king got cursed. They said by the gods, but it was probably just some really stupid wizard. It was supposed to be a punishment just for that king, and now _I_ can't go into the closed dungeons."

Teddy, who had a goblet half-dipped into the cauldron, stopped. "What?"

Neil looked at him like he might be a bit slow, and said, "If I weren't a werewolf, I'd be able to go to the dungeons. Gavin says we might even find a new way into the Chamber of Secrets."

But Teddy wasn't concerned about the firstie Slytherin adventure. His mind was trying to snag on something. He finished dosing Neil, sat through what seemed an excruciatingly long Charms class (Flitwick assigned partners, and Teddy wound up working with Lizzie, which turned into a forty-minute recitation of his faults as a boyfriend), then an even longer History of Magic class with Binns.

Something about Fifi LaFolle.

 _Something._

After History of Magic, he skipped lunch and went up to Gryffindor Tower. Fifi's research notes were on his desk, now buried under other things. He scanned them for anything that would stand out, and stopped near the top of the second scroll.

 _The Gambia. Brimmann's crew caused havoc with their last known act, when they cursed the local populace with Blistering Blood-Spots. Three villagers died of the illness._

 _Brimmann's crew caused..._

 _Some king got cursed. They said by the gods, but it was probably just some really stupid wizard. It was supposed to be a punishment just for that king..._

"That's it," Teddy whispered.

He got the Maze out hastily and entered it without any fanfare. The Guide took the form of Fifi LaFolle - young, corporeal, and dressed in a brilliant shade of pink. She took him through a battered wooden gate to a West African village, where Roderick Brimmann and several pirates were sprawled out on the ground, passed out among bottles of Firewhiskey. There were a few bodies scattered among them, and several frightened villagers huddled in their huts. One of the bodies - a young witch with horrible cuts on her face - suddenly stirred. She put her hands to her ruined cheeks, then let out a scream. Brimmann mumbled something, but didn't wake up.

The witch scuttled forward on all fours and grabbed a knife from beside Brimmann's hand. She raised it, then hissed and put it down, grabbing instead for Brimmann's wand. With a complex motion and a sudden, downward stroke, she spat out a Curse. Blood erupted from several places on Brimmann's face, and he woke up now, screaming in fury. He grabbed the witch by the throat and threw her across the clearing. She landed by the fire, her head at an impossible angle, the flames already beginning to creep up a beaded strand of hair. Brimmann stormed through the village, waking the other pirates, and Teddy felt an odd tingle in the air behind him. He turned to find Tirza Malone instead of Fifi LaFolle, and she was standing on the gangplank of a ship. Teddy followed her up it. On deck, several pirates were draped over the cannons, dead and bleeding. Brimmann, lashed to the wheel, was all but unrecognizable beneath his red mask. He steered recklessly, blindly.

Teddy looked at Tirza. "This is it, isn't it? This is the real path. They didn't curse the village. Someone cursed them, and they just shared the wealth. They all died on the ship."

Tirza didn't answer. The guides never did.

Teddy thanked her, then followed his steps backward and came out of the Maze. He wasn't sure how to prove it, but he thought it might be a good idea to research ghost ships - or at least what Muggles _called_ ghost ships - not to mention the nature of the Blistering Blood-Spots curse. Robards gave him permission the next day to use several books in the Restricted Section - Teddy had been afraid he wouldn't, after their last conversation, but he seemed excited by the idea - and he spent most of his spare time there over the next few days. When Friday came, he was so distracted that he almost didn't understand why Jane Hunter was asking him where he wanted to meet. She rolled her eyes and said that he could always find someone else to go with. He opted not to. The dreams were gone, and he felt on the verge of solving everything, even the puzzle of the message he'd seen.

He took Jane into Hogsmeade, and they had a fantastic time. Jane turned out to have a good sense of humor, and a keen interest in her own quest for Robards' class. She'd already borrowed Daniel's microscope to examine what she called "trace evidence," and she had a huge notebook filled with theories that she was systematically eliminating. She was delighted to have a chance to use logic in a Hogwarts class. They had lunch at the Hog's Head, and visited Lee and Verity at Weasleys' Zonks, and somehow found themselves on a bench of the local play park at the end of the day. Teddy could think of no reasons at all to avoid kissing Jane. She didn't seem to be looking for reasons, either. They walked back to school hand in hand (Ruthless, a bit ahead of them on the road, kept looking back and rolling her eyes; Teddy didn't see Victoire anywhere, and was glad), and Teddy left her at the stairs leading down to Slytherin. She started down then came back for another kiss. Teddy smiled as he watched her disappear.

Behind him, someone coughed.

He turned.

The visitor was looking assiduously away, but grinning. "I _thought_ you might have forgotten that you were supposed to meet your poor old Uncle Harry for tea."

Teddy smiled.

 _Everything_ would fall back into place soon.


	11. A Walk In The Woods

**Chapter 11:**

 **A Walk In The Woods**

"I thought we were meeting at Hagrid's," Teddy said. He started to hug Uncle Harry, then realized that he was standing at the edge of the Great Hall and most of the school was just coming in from Hogsmeade. Instead, he stuck his hand out.

Uncle Harry shook it solemnly, though the corners of his mouth were twitching. "Well, we were. But Hagrid and I were talking to Neville and Hannah upstairs, and Cho and her husband, and we heard the pitter patter of a hundred teenage feet, so I thought I'd try to catch you. Sorry to interrupt. That's the Hunter girl, isn't it? The Muggle-born Slytherin girl?"

"Yes," Teddy said. He tried to think of a way to segue into asking about the undelivered message, but decided it would take a bit too much explaining for now. He should ask Maddie how much he could share about the Maze. He returned his attention to Jane. "She's quite smart," he said. "She wants to take Muggle exams as well as wizarding ones this year."

"Hermione will be very jealous if she does." Uncle Harry grinned. "Why not come upstairs? Ginny and your granny sent a vast quantity of food, which is already being nibbled in certain quarters. Cho and her husband are going out, and they said we could actually have dinner in their rooms, if you'd like, after everyone finishes picking at it."

Teddy shrugged.

"I can see you're turning into a man of many words." Uncle Harry turned and started walking upstairs. "Neville says you haven't been up to see him."

"In the family quarters?"

"Other students have. He says Marie's been over several times."

"Marie's been everywhere," Teddy said. He shook his head and started telling Uncle Harry about Marie's meteoric rise to the top of her year's social pecking order, then about Ruthless and her studying, and about Buckbeak and Dapple, and anything he could think of about Victoire that didn't involve knowing exactly how soft her lips were.

By the time he'd moved on to his own schoolwork, they'd turned right, into a shadowy corridor on the third floor. It was lined with cobwebby doors, but at the end, where two doors were facing each other, someone had put out bright carpets and a picnic table. Hannah Longbottom and Daniel were involved in some kind of conversation across it, and Professor Longbottom seemed to be in the middle of a prodigiously sized bowl of stew. Hagrid was taking up an entire bench on the far side, and he waved cheerfully. Professor Morse was sitting on a hovering broomstick, and-completely against Hogwarts rules-she flew it down the corridor, looped over Teddy and Uncle Harry, and came around to float beside them.

"You're still a great flyer, Cho," Uncle Harry said.

"I keep up with my practice," she said. "You'd best hurry, or I won't be able to stop Daniel from breaking into Andromeda's biscuits. I told him that her grandson ought to at least have first pick, but he's not a patient man."

They reached the edge of the carpeting, and suddenly, Teddy could hear everyone's voices. Hannah smiled brightly. "Oh, Teddy! I'm happy to see you."

"Thanks," Teddy said, and slipped awkwardly onto the picnic bench.

"She skipped the 'finally,'" Professor Longbottom said.

"Well, I didn't think you'd want to be disturbed," Teddy said. He looked around. "Is it, er... always like this?"

Daniel shrugged. "We decided to make it a little neighborhood. Perhaps some of the single teachers would care to move here and have bigger apartments."

"Oh, that's not at all Hogwarts tradition," Professor Morse said. She slid off her broom and picked up her teacup. "I don't think you'll have any takers."

"Except for certain single ladies who have raging crushes on Daniel," Hannah said.

"I'm watching my back," Professor Morse said somberly, then finished her cup, stared at the leaves, and started to laugh.

"Watch it careful," Hagrid told her. "Go' good aim, that one."

Teddy squirmed. The idea that Professor Trelawney had a raging crush on _anyone_ was disturbing. "So how is everyone?" he asked, to change the subject. "I mean, aside from tired after marking all the homework you give fifth years."

Professor Longbottom laughed, and started telling them all about a seedling he'd found in Tibet on his honeymoon ("Leave it to Neville," Hannah said, rolling her eyes), which he'd managed to grow into a yearling tree with golden leaves that rang like the bells in the mountain temples. Hannah picked it up, describing her out-of-school forays to find the sorts of fertilizer that they'd decided they needed.

"Ah, yes," Professor Morse said. "Married life-it's all about acquiring exotic bits of dung. Remember that, Teddy, and it will serve you well."

Teddy wasn't entirely sure what to say to this. Not that it was horribly revealing, but… well, he had a sense thatbefore he'd arrived, they'd been sampling something rather stronger than the pumpkin juice, and Professor Morse might well have had the most of it. He smiled politely. Hagrid, who was the only other person present who wasn't married, didn't seem to care.

Professor Longbottom narrowed his eyes, then said, "I think maybe a this is a bit much with a student."

Teddy muttered, "Thank you."

They all laughed fondly.

Daniel glanced at his watch, then said, "Cho, if you're going to grab my arm and suffocate me to get to London, we may as well do it in time to make the curtain."

"We're going to the ballet," Professor Morse said. "Daniel got tickets for my birthday. I've never been before."

"I went with Olympe once," Hagrid said. "That was when we were trying to shake off some people following us in France. Pretty thing. Yeh'll like it fine."

"I'm very excited," Professor Morse said, and pointed her wand at herself. Her plain, blue-draped robes disappeared and became a short-sleeved Muggle dress, pale pink, with some kind of shimmery material. She flicked it at Daniel, and his blue jeans and tee shirt became a tuxedo. She grabbed her broom. "Come on. We'll fly out to the Disapparition point."

Pulling a face like he was being brought to the guillotine, Daniel climbed onto the broomstick behind her. They sped down the corridor and out an open window, and were gone.

Uncle Harry stood up. "Well, with that, I could stand a real supper, if Neville hasn't finished the entirety of Ginny's stew."

"I left enough to expand," Professor Longbottom said.

"Good." Uncle Harry Summoned the cauldron, along with the box of Granny's biscuits (severely depleted) and what looked like two loaves of fresh bread from Molly Weasley. "Teddy?"

Gratefully, Teddy got up. He smiled again at Hagrid and the Longbottoms, then followed Uncle Harry into the Morses' rooms. They were small, but not cramped, especially as Professor Morse had used the same spells she used on the dungeon walls to give the illusion of space off to the sides. Bookcases were everywhere, filled with Muggle and magical tomes, and Muggle pictures were scattered on tables showing the Morses in different parts of the world, often with children who didn't seem well. There was also a wedding picture of them. The furniture was standard Hogwarts issue, but the old oak tables were strewn with odd things that Teddy assumed Daniel had brought along.

"Where do you suppose the dining table is?" Uncle Harry asked.

Teddy looked up from a photograph he was examining-Daniel with a little girl who was streaked with mud, but looked utterly happy to be there with him-and spotted a cleaned-off table through a door behind Uncle Harry. He pointed. Uncle Harry Banished the food in that direction, then followed it. Teddy joined him, and they sat down at one end of the table together.

Uncle Harry waved his wand, and a pile of letters appeared. "Everyone decided to send the letters with me, instead of with owls, as long as I was coming. This one's from Lily," he said, handing Teddy the one on top. "She was so happy to have a letter of her very own that she's been trying to think of everything she could possibly put into a letter for weeks. I think it's the first she's written. It may have quite a lot of news about Arf."

"Arf?"

"Ron and Hermione got a dog. Hugo has decided that its name is 'Arf,' and it won't answer to anything else. Lily's been keen for us to get a dog now. James doesn't think Martian will like it. I'm sure you'll get the entire argument from both of them."

"What about Al?"

Uncle Harry fished through the letters and came out with another. "Here's Al. If he tells you what he's thinking, pass it along. He won't vote in front of the others."

"Oh."

He continued going through the stack of letters. "This is from your Granny-I think she just wants you to check in-and this one's from Luna, actually; I'm not sure what it is. There's one from Bill; I think it has something to do with Victoire-"

Teddy's heart nearly stopped. "Why? What did she say? I mean... what would he... why...?"

Uncle Harry raised both eyebrows. "Is there something you want to tell me, Teddy?"

"Not in the least."

He nodded. "All right." He handed Teddy the last, and thickest, envelope. "This is James, of course. More of the story about Sirius. I read it. Very exciting."

Teddy took the envelope and frowned at it. "Uncle Harry, does it bother you that we write stories about Sirius?"

"It's odd. But I'm used to it. And I think Sirius would love it. I'm surprised you don't write about your dad, though."

"I'd best get to it, before Fifi LaFolle does," Teddy said.

Uncle Harry considered this. "I'm not sure I want to know," he said, then sighed. Teddy realized a moment before he started talking that there was something amiss. He'd _never_ come bearing family letters from everyone, or arranged for a jolly meeting with old friends before they talked-old friends who were conveniently located at Hogwarts. "Teddy," he said, "I've also talked to Maddie. She said she's been expecting to hear from you for weeks."

"I haven't really needed help," Teddy said.

"I've had word that you're distant and Robards says you're not morphing. Maddie's very concerned about that."

Teddy felt his face go red hot. "Why is everybody talking about me? Maybe I should go back to Gryffindor Tower and talk about Professor Trelawney having a crush on Daniel, or say that Hannah's collecting dragon dung, or Professor Morse really likes her mead..."

"Teddy. What's happening?"

"Nothing." He ladled out some stew. "It's just... well, dreams, I suppose."

"What sorts of dreams?"

Teddy tapped the edge of his bowl with a spoon. "Uncle Harry, could I ask you something?"

"You know you can."

"Did my father ever tell you something that you were supposed to tell me?" Teddy looked down. "Because the Daedalus Maze-the thing Maddie gave me... I think it's caught on some message I was supposed to get. It's probably nothing, but I keep having dreams, where you and Dad and Sirius and your parents are all in the Forest, and then Dad says something, but I can't hear it. Donzo says that messages can get a bit nasty if they find a way back in. I think that's all there is." He looked up.

Uncle Harry's face had gone white. The thin lightning scar on his forehead was very prominent against the pallor. He set his fork down. "Teddy, I... I think perhaps we should take our own walk in the Forest. We need to talk."

Teddy's heart nearly stopped at the look on Uncle Harry's face. Whatever he was thinking of, it actually frightened him, something that was beyond what Teddy could imagine.

He insisted on finishing supper first. It would be a long walk, he thought, and he'd rather have a full stomach for it.

Teddy didn't like his pallor, or the fact that despite his words, he ate next to nothing, nor did he prod Teddy to eat. There was a faraway look in his eyes, and more than once, Teddy noticed his lips moving, like he was rehearsing. This made Teddy more nervous-it shouldn't have been that difficult a question-and in the end, he only finished half of his own bowl, and ignored the biscuits and bread entirely. They didn't talk much, and cleaned up the Morses' rooms without saying anything at all.

Uncle Harry took a deep and shaky breath, then went to the door. "Come on, Teddy," he said. "Let's go."

"Into the Forbidden Forest?"

"I'll cover any problems with Sprout."

"I didn't mean..." Teddy shook his head, confused, then went out into the corridor. Uncle Harry locked the door behind them and Summoned his heavy autumn cloak from under the picnic table. Teddy's own jacket, which he'd had on for his trip to Hogsmeade, was draped over a chair he nearly tripped over, or he'd have forgotten it.

Together, they prowled down the evening halls to the main door. No one stopped them. Outside, the night was crisp and cold, and the grass heavy with moisture. Teddy turned and looked over his shoulder. He wasn't sure why. The windows of Hogwarts glowed with candle-light beneath the nearly full moon, and the wind carried the musty, sweet smell of dead and crumbling leaves. He imagined the people inside, going about their errands, playing games, talking about the day in Hogsmeade. Ruthless would be in the library, maybe reading Mum's book or working from others. Jane might be telling Honoria about the date in Hogsmeade. Victoire was probably in the Common Room, surveying the things she'd bought from Lee and Verity, and making plans for an opening salvo in a prank war. Frankie would be studying from his notes, or working on an essay. Corky would be...

"Teddy? We don't have to go if you don't want to."

Teddy turned away from the castle and shook his head. Uncle Harry was partway down the hill. The light from the moon caught his glasses. Teddy broke into a run to join him, then slowed as they entered the darkness under the canopy of the Forbidden Forest. They both lit their wands.

"The first thing you need to know," Uncle Harry said, "was that it wasn't a message. He didn't know I'd ever come out of the woods. He had no reason to believe it. _I_ didn't believe it."

Teddy tried to think of something to say, but couldn't. Uncle Harry's words made it sound like the vision was literal, but it couldn't have been, not if Dad had actually mentioned Teddy by name. All of the others had been gone long before Teddy had _got_ a name.

Uncle Harry seemed to be gathering himself to go on. He didn't notice Teddy's lack of response. "The second thing you need to know is that Remus was the first adult I actually loved since my parents died. I didn't know Dumbledore particularly well yet, and he wasn't an easy man to love. And... well, you've met Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon. Remus was the first man I met that I thought I could _be_ , and wouldn't mind being, someday. Sirius came quickly enough, but Lupin was first. I never told him that."

"He knew," Teddy said tentatively as they took a turn on a forest path. Teddy recognized it distantly as the path he'd followed with Frankie in some other life, when Frankie had decided an overgrown glade was the center of the universe, and had nearly died there.

"I hope so." Uncle Harry lifted a branch, but still had to duck to get to the next segment of the path. It wasn't like Hagrid not to tend the paths. Uncle Harry paused, looked around, then veered to the right. "It's got overgrown. I sealed it off, you know. After the fire. Neville and I sealed it off. Made it Unplottable. No one's been here."

"Oh."

They pushed on through the undergrowth, then the tree line abruptly broke, and they descended into a shallow, bowl-shaped clearing. Young ferns and mosses grew over charred logs. Uncle Harry sat down on one of the latter and pointed to one across from it for Teddy. "I don't know where to start," he said. "I've been trying to think of where to start, but nothing's come of it."

"Why here?" Teddy asked.

"We've both been touched by Death here," Uncle Harry said. "It seemed the right place."

"Not a great recommendation," Teddy muttered.

"The first time," Uncle Harry said, "was my second year. This clearing used to be home to a friend of Hagrid's, an Acromantula called Aragog. When Hermione was Petrified, Ron and I came here. Aragog's children would have eaten us if it hadn't been for an enchanted car."

This seemed to be nervous prattle. Teddy had heard the story before, and it was usually a chance to laugh at Ron's fear of spiders.

Uncle Harry swallowed hard. "During the battle, after he killed Snape and left the Shrieking Shack, this is where Voldemort came, and the Death Eaters."

"This is where you got hurt? Where Hagrid carried you back from? Where Narcissa saved you?"

"Teddy, this is where I died."

Words froze in Teddy's mouth. They had a taste like saltwater on marble.

Hesitantly, Uncle Harry started to tell the story that Teddy had always known, but this time he told all of it, beginning with the night when his own parents had died, and he had become The Boy Who Lived. He told this with none of the rhetorical flourishes that the biographers enjoyed. He didn't remember it. He'd seen it through a connection with Voldemort-a connection that had been left out of the official records. He didn't need to tell Teddy that it was to remain outside of public knowledge. As far as anyone knew, he'd somehow survived the curse a second time-"Why not? They believed I'd survived it once with some kind of magic I had that they didn't know about. Why shouldn't I do it again?"-but had cleverly feigned death, to put himself into a strategically better position. Even Hagrid, who had carried him from the woods, and Narcissa Malfoy, who had lied for him, believed that it had been a very clever ruse.

"But I had to die," he said. "I had to be broken completely, to get rid of the part of Voldemort that had been lodged inside me. I came here to die. I expected that Neville would take over the fight at the castle after I was gone, or Ron and Hermione."

Teddy's throat felt like it was no wider than a sewing needle, and his blood was pounding in the arteries around his head. "But you came _back_. You said that couldn't be done."

"Voldemort quite unintentionally made himself into my Horcrux as well-or close enough to it that there's no real difference. He anchored me. So once I was destroyed, just as he'd been at my parents' home, I could follow that path back. I almost didn't. But I knew I had to. There were things to finish."

 _Like raising your son?_ Teddy thought, and tried to step on it. Mum and Dad hadn't had Horcruxes to bring them back. They hadn't had a choice. _So why should Uncle Harry have a choice? Weren't Mum and Dad worth a choice? Didn't they have some reason to be back? Didn't-_

He ground his teeth. A sharp breath escaped through them, and Uncle Harry turned to him, looking spooked, as if he'd been listening in on Teddy's thoughts.

Teddy grabbed the charred log, digging his fingers into the blackened bark. A beetle, roused from its slumber, trundled across his fingers. When he trusted his voice, he said, "What does this have to do with the message from Dad? What's the vision? Because you couldn't have been with them. You _couldn't._ They were all dead. Dad had to have _just_ died, but he was so happy, he wouldn't have been so happy if all of that was happening, and Mum had died, and he wasn't with me anymore and-" He stopped, realizing how petty he sounded. "Sorry."

Uncle Harry shook his head. "No. Don't be sorry. Not for that. I was sorry. I told him I was sorry, and he said that you'd know that he died so you could have a happier world. If there's a message, that's it. And you do know it, don't you, Teddy? That he chose to fight so that you would have a chance at a happy life."

Teddy thought of the mostly empty house where he and Granny lived, of Mum's wardrobes slowly aging in the basement, of Dad's rotting art supplies, even of the brothers and sisters he'd never had, even though he'd promised himself he would never think of them again. He thought of looking out his window late one night when he couldn't sleep, and seeing Granny in the back garden, drinking. She'd fallen to her knees, her arms around her waist, the glass shattering on the stones beside her, and wailed. He thought of Mom's pink tulle headband, which ought to have been buried with her, where it would be wound around her skull now, holding the last few strands of dry, crumbling brown hair.

The injustice of it slammed into him like a blast of lightning, raging through his nerves. What had they accomplished by dying? The war had been won only a few hours later, with no help from them. They could have stayed home, and it would have gone along at just the same course. Uncle Harry was apparently the only one in the whole battle who'd mattered.

He forced a breath into his swelling throat, and said, "How could he have said anything? He's not a ghost."

"The same way he saved your life when you nearly died here during your first year. The way he helped protect me from Dementors that night." Uncle Harry drew his wand and pointed it at a charred rock. The lines of a triangle appeared there. "Cloak," he said dully, then moved his wand down, and a straight line bisected it. "Wand." He twirled it and a circle was drawn inside the triangle, around the line. "Stone."

Teddy stared at the symbol etched in the soot. He knew it. Everyone knew it. The latest edition of iTales of Beadle the Bard/i, which everyone was raised on, had it on the back cover. "The Deathly Hallows?" Icy fingers dug into his brain. "You had them."

"Yes."

Teddy blinked, looked again, then turned his hand over. The scar on his palm nearly glowed in the moonlight. His stomach churned, and he fought to keep from losing his supper. Sweat gathered in his temples and ran down his cheeks. "You had the Resurrection Stone."

Uncle Harry turned to him, his green eyes glassy and haunted. He nodded.

Teddy looked at the scar on his hand again, then around the clearing where he'd come so close to dying four years ago. He'd caught a pebble in his hand, pulled up from the earth in the roots of a strange plant, and then there had been a tall, thin figure in the smoke, a cool hand on his neck, a hoarse voice telling him that he would be all right... and to let go.

"I had it, too," he said.

"Yes," Uncle Harry said. "It found you somehow. Hermione always thought that if you just lost it amongst other pebbles, it would be impossible to find, but magical objects like that aren't all that easy to lose."

"It saved my life. _Dad_ saved my life."

"Yes."

"That's what you said you weren't going to tell me until later."

"I didn't think you were ready. I'm still not sure you are."

The words cut through the icy fog in Teddy's mind like the desert sun. "My Dad saved my life, and you decided that I shouldn't know about it? That I wasn't ready? Maybe _Dad_ thought I was ready. Or did you call him back for a little chat to find out?"

"No, I didn't..."

"Of course not. He might not have wanted you to do that. He might have wanted to talk to me when I wasn't passing out! I never even got to see him. When I turned over, the smoke was in my eyes."

"Teddy, he kept you safe by taking you halfway into the land of the dead. That's why we couldn't see you. That's why you had to let go for us to find you. It kept you out of the way of the Red Caps, but-"

"I wasn't dead. I was with them. I was with Dad and Mum and Sirius and your dad. They came to me. They were _real._ I said it was a dream and you said you knew. You lied. You knew they were real."

Uncle Harry blinked wildly. "No, I- Well..."

Teddy shook his head. The world seemed to be shimmering around them, pricked with points of bright, cold light, seen through a veil of sunlit ice. "You always said that if you could have given me my parents, you would have. But you could have. You could and you didn't. You had the Stone right here! You knew where it was!"

"Teddy, that's not them, just a _part_ of them-"

"Part is better than nothing!"

"It's not good for you."

Teddy stood up, his mind whirling with black fire. "My parents wouldn't hurt me! They're just on the other side of a line-"

"It's not the people who hurt you. It's the line. You don't want to get that close to Death."

"I didn't get close to Death. Death got close to me. Thanks to you."

Uncle Harry drew back, his mouth pressed into a tight, thin line. "I know you're angry, Teddy..."

"The only two people who needed to die that night were you and Voldemort."

"The people who chose to go to battle didn't do it lightly," Uncle Harry said. "Don't you dare disrespect them that way."

"I'm not the one who left it all to the last minute."

"Oh, I'm sure you'd have done much better on your own. There must have been something you could have burnt down or blown up."

The words swung out like a lash, and Teddy saw the Shrieking Shack, bursting apart at the seams, and this patch of forest, buried under a blanket of suffocating smoke as Frankie and Tinny choked for breath underneath him. "At least nobody died on my watch, except Greyback, and he deserved it."

"So, now you're the one deciding who deserves to live or die."

"You're the one who could have brought them back! You had the Stone!"

"The Stone never worked."

"Yes, it did! I saw them! My father came for me."

"He came as far as he could for you. But they can't really pass all the way back. It never worked. That's why the second brother went crazy."

"The _story?_ You made the call because of a story?"

"Because the story said something important."

"The story said what Beadle the Bard wanted it to say. Maybe I should write it. Better yet, James could. They'd all live happily ever after, while their cats had swordfights with hippogriffs. Would you use it then?"

"It never worked properly," Uncle Harry repeated slowly. Teddy could feel the anger building in the air around him, but couldn't bring himself to care. " _Then_ it was turned into a Horcrux, and after that, it was cracked nearly in half. What exactly do you think it would bring back?"

There was no answer. The only way to know the answer was to do it, but Uncle Harry had never given anyone a choice about finding out.

Teddy turned and started out of the clearing.

"Teddy!"

Teddy could hear Uncle Harry coming behind him, but didn't turn around.

"Dammit, Teddy, we're not done."

Teddy whirled on him. "What do you want? Do you think this is going to end up with me realizing how wise and right you are? Maybe giving you a pat on the head? Forget it."

"What do you want from me?"

"The Stone."

Uncle Harry, who'd been starting to move forward, stopped dead. "That's never going to happen, Teddy."

"My parents wanted me to have it, or I wouldn't have found it first year, would I?"

"I think it found you."

"And saved my life. Do you wish I hadn't found it?"

"No!"

"Then let me have it. Let me see them!"

"It wouldn't be them. Just some part of them, some shadow that you need right now-"

"I need all of them, so it ought to bring them back."

"Oh, really? You need your mum moping about for a year over a broken romance? Or maybe your dad trying to run away full tilt as soon as he found out about you? Or maybe you need-"

Teddy closed his eyes and put his hands over his ears. "Shut up!" He felt a cool hand on his wrist and yanked himself away. "Don't touch me," he hissed, then turned, opened his eyes, and blundered his way down the path. This time, he didn't hear any footsteps behind him.

Around him, the Forest seemed to close in, dark shadows making walls on every side. He ran blindly, twisting his ankles on tree roots, turning here and there, not paying attention. A stream appeared from nowhere and he splashed across it. A unicorn scurried out of his way. Somewhere, he could hear centaurs playing pan flutes, but he never caught sight of them. He'd been running for what seemed an hour when he finally tripped over a root that was too big to catch his balance from. He flew, face first, into a patch of dry ferns. A startled fairy buzzed upward, twinkling with alarm. Others burst from other parts of the small clearing, and swarmed toward a high tree.

Teddy rolled over, his arm across his forehead, and looked at the unforgiving sky. The moon, so close to full, glared hungrily down at him. Tomorrow, the werewolves would howl to it, but tonight, it was only Teddy. Were the dead watching? Or had they abandoned him? It was Uncle Harry they'd cared for, after all-Uncle Harry they'd died for. Would they be with him now?

It was a sobering thought.

For the first time, Teddy realized that he didn't know where he was at all. He didn't recognize the clearing, or the high ridge of stone that sheltered it, or the small, deep pool that reflected the moonlight. He didn't know where he'd turned.

He got to his feet slowly and reached into the pocket of his jacket. To his great relief, the Marauder's Map was still there, still folded carefully along its aging lines. He took it out and raised his wand. The tip was shaking as he said, "I solemnly swear I am up to no good."

The lines appeared sluggishly, but they did come. He could see into the Forest a little way, but not to where he was. Uncle Harry was roaming the Forest's edge, and Professor Longbottom and Hagrid were with him. Hannah fluttered in, and Teddy guessed she'd been beyond the Map's boundary.

"Show me the way home," Teddy whispered, then groaned, figuring it was too late to stop what was about to happen-the Map wasn't anyone's true voice, and giving it an order only served to do one thing. The lines of the castle disappeared, and handwriting swam up to the surface in their place.

 _Mr. Prongs would like to express the opinion that Mr. Wings is an idiot._

 _Mr. Wormtail concurs, and wonders if Mr. Wings was born that way, or if it's a real effort._

 _Mr. Padfoot-_

Teddy folded the Map, not wanting to hear Sirius or Dad joyfully call him names just now.

His arms and legs aching and his ankles an agony, Teddy climbed to the top of the rocky outcropping. He could see the black smear of the lake from here, and he followed it with his eyes to the faint twinkle of Hogwarts Castle. He couldn't see paths he'd need to take. He sighed, raised his wand, and said, " _Accio_ broomstick!"

He didn't like to fly and didn't do it often, but Uncle Harry had always seen to it that he had a broomstick handy, in case he came around. It was currently at the back of his wardrobe behind a pile of dirty school robes. Teddy guessed he'd have to fix the wardrobe door when he got back.

It took nearly five minutes, but the broomstick did come, and he climbed onto it. The flight over the forest was awkward and stiff. He could see Uncle Harry and the others below-it looked like Daniel and Professor Morse had joined them-but he didn't bother to tell them he was all right. They'd find out soon enough. He soared to Gryffindor Tower, found his window, and opened it. Checkmate arched her back, hissed, then ran under his desk.

The Daedalus Maze was sitting on top of the desk.

Teddy stared at it for a long time, feeling numb and confused, then pointed his wand at it and said, " _Sulci Numine._ "

He found himself back in the clearing, atop the stone, with Narcissa Malfoy as his Guide. Below, he could see the world spread out in time and space. He saw ancestors and descendants, friends and enemies. He saw Roderick Brimmann in the crow's nest of his ship, his face running with sores as he tried to hold on to his miserable life long enough to reach a great port ( _Lisbon_ , Teddy's mind supplied crazily, _where he'll/I'll do his/my last mischief, sharing the cursed plague that had taken his/my men, too bad he'll/I'll never make London in this state..._ ). It seemed he could see and hear everything. Fenrir Greyback lurked in the woods near a child's home- _Vivian, they call her Vivian_ -his unspeakable desires as clear as Teddy's own thoughts. From somewhere else, he could hear the high-pitched laughter of Tom Riddle, leading two orphans to a terrifying fate that he delighted in ( _he made them hurt one another_ ), and somewhere beyond that, he saw a cruel young man carving a symbol into the wall of a place he had never been before...

Narcissa smiled wickedly and led him down, through twisting paths, ignoring his protests that his ankles hurt, and then he was in the clearing again, and Uncle Harry lay there, broken, with Lord Voldemort standing over him. The Guide became Granny, and he was led back further through the Forest, to the stream, to the grounds beneath the north battlements, and Dad was there, bleeding and in pain, and Mum ran out, and then the Guide changed again, to the only sister left, and she was laughing, her black hair and black eyes a negation of light. She capered behind Mum, her knife glimmering in the moonlight.

Teddy lunged at her, a keening sound escaping his throat. He didn't care what she was meant to show him, didn't care what the Mystery was. He wrapped his hands around her throat before she could reach them and throttled.

The pain was scorching, much worse than it had been the first time he'd tried the Maze, when he'd tried to touch Mum the day Maddie had led him into it. It burrowed into his forearms like hot pokers, and wrapped itself around his skull, drilling into his temples as though the real Bellatrix were really there, with whatever horrible knife she'd acquired after losing the one she'd used to kill Dobby and was stabbing him, over and over, as she'd stabbed Mum, making her bleed out her life as the last thing Dad saw in his.

He didn't let go. She continued to laugh.

The scene became white and bright, and Teddy felt himself lifted from the bloodied ground. Something crashed, and the world was filled with fire, and then he was outside again, lying on the floor of his room in Gryffindor Tower.

The Maze had fallen to the floor and cracked down one side.

Teddy tried to get up, to at least make it to his bed, but he couldn't seem to move.

After a long time, Checkmate crawled out from her hiding place and curled up on his chest.

They both slept.


	12. Slippage

**Chapter 12:**

 **Slippage**

Teddy dreamed disjointedly, sometimes finding himself in the paths of the Maze, sometimes in his childhood at Granny's and Uncle Harry's, sometimes adrift on the ocean, with only a plank from Tirza's ship to keep him afloat. For a long time, he seemed to be living the life he'd imagined for himself in the Shrieking Shack, but he was having an argument with Dad about his marks in Muggle Studies, and his sister Julia kept trying to steal things from his room. On her last foray, he grabbed her in a headlock, and when she turned, she'd become Bellatrix, and he escaped the dream just before she stabbed him again. At some point during the night, the line between dreams and wakefulness was so thin that he could have sworn that Sirius, in his dog form as Padfoot, was gamboling around his room.

Even through his dreams, he was aware of the cold floor beneath him, and the draft from the open window. He felt Checkmate get up and move away, probably looking for warmer quarters, but couldn't seem to wake up to get his blanket.

There was a grayish red tint in the world when he heard voices. At first, he thought they were in his dream, but they were too far away for that.

" - probably just sleeping in, it's Sunday," a girl's voice said, and Teddy recognized the Scottish twist in the words. Ruthless.

The next voice was Victoire's. "He's almost always up for breakfast, Ruth."

There was a pause, then Ruthless said, "Not always. After Greyback - " She stopped talking, then called, "Lupin, are you in there?"

Teddy tried to answer, but only managed a weak sort of gag. He got his eyes open. By the sunlight, it was mid-morning.

"Teddy!"

He flung his arm out and hit his chair, which skittered a few inches and crashed into his desk, sending a pile of books toppling off the corner.

"Stand back," Ruthless said outside, then called, "Lupin, you'd best not be naked!"

The door blew in with a crash, then Victoire ran in. "Teddy, what happened?"

He couldn't very well answer - even if he could find his voice, he wasn't sure.

"You didn't sleep here with the bloody window open, did you?" Ruthless asked. "Dammit, Teddy, it's almost Halloween."

"He's really sick," Victoire said.

Ruthless squatted down beside him and put her fingers on either side of his chin. She pointed her wand at his face, and the world was suddenly bright.

"I'm getting Madam Pomfrey," Ruthless said. "You stay here and get him warmed up."

Victoire nodded. "I'll get a blanket."

She set him down gently as Ruthless ran out. A moment later, she came back with the quilt from his bed and wrapped it around him tightly. Another set of footsteps came in, and Teddy managed to glance up enough to spot Marie, who looked more like a frightened five year old than the Princess of Gryffindor.

"Marie," Victoire said, "do you know which dormitory I'm in?"

She nodded.

"Get the blue and white plant by my bed and bring it back here."

"What's wrong with Teddy?"

"I don't know. Ruth Scrimgeour's gone for Madam Pomfrey. Just get the plant."

Marie scurried out.

Victoire maneuvered Teddy's head into her lap and combed his hair with her fingers. "You'll be all right," she said. "The aethracandia will get your head clear. It always works."

Marie returned in what seemed only seconds, but must have been at least a few minutes, and Teddy saw a flash of blue and white as something was thrust under his nose. The world was full of a scent like sunlight on freshly turned earth, with delicate green things just starting to grow in it. There was even a hint of the sea. It smelled like Shell Cottage.

Teddy blinked as feeling started to seep back into his mind. "What time is it?" he asked.

"What time..." Marie shook her head. "Who cares what time it is?"

"It's ten-thirty," Victoire said. "What happened?"

"I don't know," Teddy said. "Could you help me sit up?"

"Not until Madam Pomfrey says it's all right." She glanced down. "Your leg is swollen."

Teddy made a great effort to lift his head. She was right - his left ankle looked like someone had injected Swelling Solution straight into the bone. It throbbed distantly, and he remembered blundering down the path in the forest, catching it on a tree root, being thrown into the clearing... but then it was the Maze again, and Narcissa was waiting for him there. He lowered his head back into Victoire's lap. Marie sat down beside him and took his hand, petting it like it was a stray kitten she'd found somewhere.

There was a commotion somewhere below, and then Ruthless was back, looking winded, with Madam Pomfrey, Professor Longbottom, and Uncle Harry. Teddy looked away.

Madam Pomfrey Conjured a stretcher and Levitated Teddy onto it, then began to examine him. "Nasty sprained ankle, and I think there might be a chipped bone in the foot... spell damage... Mr. Lupin, what were you doing?"

He didn't answer.

She looked over her shoulder. "Professor Longbottom, Mr. Potter, girls - perhaps you'd care to let me examine my patient in private?"

Teddy thought they might not obey her - she was just the school nurse, after all, and they were war heroes who decided what was all right for everyone else - but they went quietly enough.

"What were you doing?" Madam Pomfrey asked when they were gone. "And don't be embarrassed. Trust me, nothing shocks me after forty years at this school."

Teddy frowned, his head clearing more by the second. "I wasn't doing anything embarrassing."

"Well, let's have it, then."

"I don't know," Teddy said. "I was just..." He nodded toward the Maze, not wanting to tell her he'd tried to murder his long dead great aunt. "I just... I brushed against something I should have steered clear of. It's a Divination tool," he added when he saw her blank look. "It showed me something, and I'm not supposed to touch anything I see, but I must have brushed it."

She didn't look like she believed a word of it, but he supposed she guessed enough to do her job, because she started a string of diagnostic spells without asking any more questions.

"Well," she said when she finished, "we'll get you fixed up, but I think I'll need you in the hospital wing for a few days at least. Whoever brought the aethracandia - "

"Victoire."

" - was exactly right. We just need to get your system cleared of whatever mischief got into it." She twisted her wand absently, and a vial of blue potion appeared. Teddy drank it while she Summoned together his dressing gown, pajamas, and toothbrush. "I'll have your Uncle Harry meet us down there - "

"No."

She stopped. "What?"

"I don't want him."

"I take it back. I can still be shocked." She shook her head. "It's not my business," she muttered. "Mad, all of you, really."

Continuing to mumble in this vein, she Levitated him downstairs on the stretcher, signaling to Uncle Harry to stay away. From the corner of his eye, Teddy saw him draw back. He looked very tired and pale.

The hospital wing was empty when they got there, and she transferred him to a bed at the far end, in a patch of sunlight beneath a window. Victoire's plant, which Madam Pomfrey had apparently appropriated, landed on the bed stand with a thump. She started doing Healing spells, and Teddy drifted off again, into the gray, misty world of some far off seashore. He was dimly aware of his trainers being pulled off and his ankle Healed, and of being moved around to remove his dirty clothes from yesterday and replace them with his pajamas, but he supposed there had been something in the potion that made him sleepy. The smell of the aethracandia filled his mind and calmed him, and he finally fell into a more normal sort of sleep. He awoke in the early afternoon to find Uncle Harry sitting by his bed. They didn't talk, and Teddy drifted back to sleep. Later on, the chair was empty.

Donzo, Corky, Maurice, and Frankie brought him dinner in the early afternoon, and by then, his mind was almost entirely clear, though he still felt like he had weights tied to him. "We figured we'd best bring it down quickly," Donzo said. "Before Jane and Ruthless wasted all night arguing about which one of them was going to bring you food, and you starved to death waiting."

Teddy tried to remember why Jane would be bringing him something, then came up with a handful of kisses yesterday. That had been nice. He would have to make a point of seeing Jane soon.

Corky and Maurice told him that Jane had been quite alarming after Hogsmeade yesterday, and they were afraid that Honoria may have got quite a scoop from her. Corky promised to try not to let her publish any of it. Maurice offered to Curse her to avoid it. After Teddy finished eating, Corky, Maurice, and Donzo left. Frankie remained. He hadn't spoken much.

"Is it that bloody thing of Mum's?" he asked quietly when they were gone.

Teddy nodded.

"I hate the Department of Mysteries."

"It was my fault," Teddy said. "I did what she told me not to. They'll probably never take me now."

"Here's hoping." Frankie shrugged, then reached into his book bag. He pulled out a very thin book. "Here - have a look. I finished."

"Finished?"

"That story you wrote for James. I said I was going to make a proper book of it. Have a look. I got Franklin Driscoll to draw pictures. Paid him a few Galleons, which is more than he gets for that cartoon he does in the _Charmer_. I think it looks smart. I like the story, too. I liked it when Sir Ryan solved the riddle to get the cure for the plague. Not sure about the cats, but I guess that's just for James."

"Mostly." Teddy took the book and flipped through it. It looked very professional, and it seemed odd to see words he'd scribbled on the back of Ancient Runes assignments done up like they were a real book. Franklin had drawn Sirius - Sir Ryan - as a dashing adventurer with a sword at his side. Teddy thought he might just introduce that sword into the next story - then remembered that James was Uncle Harry's son, and after last night, Uncle Harry might not want Teddy writing to him. He closed the book. "Thanks, Frankie."

"Are you going to tell me what's going on?"

Teddy shrank back into the pillows, wanting to disappear.

Frankie took off his glasses and rubbed his nose. "You can, you know. Your godfather was looking all over for you last night. He had Mrs. Longbottom bring him to Hufflepuff to see if you'd come to see me. I think he had Professor Morse go up to Ravenclaw."

"Who went to Slytherin?"

"Corky ran into him upstairs and offered." Frankie sighed. "I guess someone saw the light in your room, because they stopped looking. I thought he'd have gone up to see you."

"We had a fight," Teddy said.

Frankie didn't look surprised. "Well... be careful, Lupin. All right?"

Teddy nodded.

After Frankie left, he went back to sleep. The weight on his arms and legs seemed to be lifting, but he was tired all the way to his bones. He could hear the school moving around him, sometimes so close that it didn't even seem to be beyond the walls of the hospital wing. Boys laughed quietly, seeming to be just further down the ward. He heard the tap of footsteps and looked up to see a great stag standing at the end of his bed, glowing white in the moonlight.

He blinked at it drowsily and said, "Leave me alone, Uncle Harry," then rolled over went back to sleep. The stag was gone the next time he looked.

Teddy awoke to the smell of eggs, sausage, and hot chocolate, and blinked drowsily.

Uncle Harry was sitting by his bed, a plate hovering beside him. He didn't look especially friendly.

"I'm here for the week," he said. "I have classes to teach. Including yours." He pushed the plate over. "Have breakfast. Madam Pomfrey thinks you should eat, even if you don't feel like it."

Warily, Teddy took the plate.

Uncle Harry watched him eat for a few minutes, then said, "I don't know how to put an end to this. I'm not going to apologize, and I have the distinct impression that you're not, either."

Teddy pushed his fried eggs around, breaking the yolk so it would run over the sausages. He wondered about toast, but decided not to ask for any.

"Do you plan to say anything at all?" Uncle Harry waited, but Teddy didn't say anything. He sighed and shook his head. "I'm going to go to class. But Teddy, this isn't going away. And you're going to have to work a lot harder than this if you intend to get rid of me."

Teddy chanced a glance up. Uncle Harry looked tired and miserable, but also very angry. Teddy had only seen him angry once or twice, and never at him, at least not like this. He looked away and reminded himself that Uncle Harry had started this, Uncle Harry had made high-handed calls about what Teddy could and couldn't handle, had decided who got to live and die, had kept Teddy from seeing Mum and Dad when he knew it was possible, all because of some stupid story.

 _And you responded by accusing him of the deaths of fifty people he loved. Brilliant._

Teddy shut the voice out and ground his teeth. Maybe it _had_ been overboard, but really, how good was Uncle Harry's judgment about anything? If he hadn't kept the Horcruxes a secret, he could have had half the Order looking for them, found them and destroyed them all before facing Voldemort, and then there wouldn't have _been_ a battle just to cover up looking for one (which Aunt Ginny and Professor Longbottom and Luna could have found months before if they'd known to look - maybe Professor Longbottom could just have made the Room of Requirement produce it when he asked!), so even if it hadn't been his _plan_ , exactly... well, he didn't really _have_ a plan. And Mum and Dad had died, and Uncle Harry had moved into their spot. He'd got Mum's mother to look after him, and of course, he'd got Teddy himself to nearly worship him.

This freshened the anger, and Teddy made himself look back up, eyes narrowed.

Uncle Harry stood up. "Eat your breakfast, Teddy," he said. "I'll send your Defense homework with Atkinson and Burke. I expect it to be done."

He turned and left.

An hour later, Madam Pomfrey came in, leading Neil Overby, who had a pronounced limp. She put him down in the bed beside Teddy's, and ran off to her Potions cupboard.

"Nearly gnawed my foot off last night," Neil offered in lieu of a greeting. He held up his right leg. The foot was bandaged heavily, and blood was seeping through. "I got it caught in a rotten log, and I guess I just decided to chew my way out instead of waiting to change back. I'm not very smart under the moon. Coral tried to fix it before I left, but her magic's never very good the morning after. Why are you here?"

Teddy didn't get a chance to make up an answer, as Madam Pomfrey came back, Conjured a curtain between them, and started to work on Neil's wound. Teddy Summoned his Astronomy homework. He was nearly finished with it when she emerged.

She shook her head as she started to examine Teddy. "I don't suppose you could tweak that Wolfsbane Potion so that realizing something is stupid is enough to stop him from doing it."

"I don't think I should start tweaking the Wolfsbane. I don't know how it works well enough, and half the ingredients are poisonous when they're not properly brewed."

"Mmm." She tipped his head back and shined her wand-light into his eyes. "Your responses are better this morning," she said. "Still not good, though. This isn't from brushing something, Mr. Lupin. Whatever you came into contact with, you were in contact for a good long time."

"Do I have to tell you?"

"I don't know. Do you?"

"Can you fix it?"

"Yes. You're on the mend already. But whatever foolishness you've been indulging in, please stop. And I quite frankly intend to give the same advice to your godfather."

"Like he'll listen."

"And you _will_?" She rolled her eyes. "Really, Mr. Lupin, I - " She stopped and frowned. "What's that?"

Teddy listened. He thought he could hear whispering voices, but he couldn't make out what they were saying, or where they were coming from. "I don't know."

The whispering stopped, and Madam Pomfrey gave her head a good shake. "This castle, honestly. I imagine it was just some of the ghosts in the wall. I shall have to talk to the Friar. He's usually good about setting rules for them in here. He knows my patients need rest."

With this, she went back to her examination, told Teddy to drink more hot chocolate and to keep the aethracandia closer to his bed, and left. After she was gone, Teddy moved aside the curtain and got Neil talking about the werewolf sanctuary to distract him from the itch of his healing wound. Everyone there was well. Teddy tried not to think of what he'd been able to see in Greyback's mind on Saturday night, but as Neil talked about Vivian and Celia's holiday in Paris ("All Celia wanted to talk about was some stupid Muggle museum!"), all he could think of was the monster crouched beyond Vivian's childhood garden, with his horrible appetites ready to be sated. He tried not to show this, and Neil didn't seem to notice.

Jane brought him his lunch later, and drew the curtain between the beds after she made a point of welcoming Neil back to Hogwarts. She seemed a good deal shyer than she had on Saturday, though this didn't stop her from giving Teddy a very satisfactory kiss - before telling him that she wasn't in any mood to be third or fourth in the line of girls he paid attention to, so if he didn't mind, she thought she'd look for a boyfriend somewhere else.

Teddy shrugged. "If that's what you want. I do like you."

She smiled. "I like you, too. Maybe we can try this some other time."

Teddy wasn't sure whether she was being sincere, or just being Slytherin and expecting him to protest and insist that he really wanted to go out with her, so she'd be sure - he didn't speak Slytherin as well as he spoke Hufflepuff, but he'd lived with Granny all his life and understood at least a little. But when he didn't protest and she didn't respond with bitterness, he supposed she was just being honest. Once that was over, they had a perfectly pleasant conversation about the Hufflepuff-Ravenclaw game that would happen next weekend. Teddy didn't care about Quidditch, but it was always good conversation fodder.

Neil was cleared after supper, and his scrawny little mates came in high spirits to pick him up and take him back to Slytherin. Teddy deduced from their conversation that they hadn't found a new route into the Chamber of Secrets, but they were quite happy to have discovered a collapsed tunnel under a statue, which they thought might lead out of the school, if they could just find a way to clear it out. Neil seemed keen to try several spells he'd read about for moving heavy objects, though Teddy privately doubted that a pack of first years could accomplish it, as no one else had been able to for years. If it was the tunnel Teddy thought it was, the Death Eaters had sealed it off pretty well during their tenure here.

Corky and Maurice came by with Teddy's homework, and no questions about what was going on with Uncle Harry, though it was clear that they knew _something_ was, as he'd have brought the homework himself under normal circumstances. They did their Astronomy and Ancient Runes together, but curfew came before they could start the Defense homework. Teddy took it out, filled with dread that it would be an essay on why people really ought to listen to an Auror who had died and come back to life, but it was just a set of questions about recognizing Cursed objects, along with practice on the Shield Charm.

Madam Pomfrey gave him one more examination before she turned down the lights for the night and left him to sleep.

He settled into the pillows and looked around the otherwise empty ward. Moonlight fell softly on crisply-made beds, and patients and Healers in portraits went about their eternal nightly routine. In one, a small boy with steam coming out of his ears gratefully accepted a goblet of potion from a Healer in a mobcap. In another a Healer sat alone, looking out the window and sighing. Teddy had always wondered who she was and what she was sighing about. In a third...

Teddy stopped. This one was usually just a Healer examining a horn that had emerged from a teenage girl's ear, but now, another figure, draped in green robes, was sitting in the foreground, looking out at Teddy with one arch eyebrow raised.

"Grayfur?" Teddy asked.

Phineas Nigellus shook his head wearily. "As I've told you on at least one hundred occasions - "

"All right. Great-great-great-grandfather. Or is it four? Phineas. Did you need something?" A thought occurred to him. "Did Uncle Harry send you from home?"

"He most certainly did not. I am obliged to do the errands of the Headmaster or Headmistress, not of Mr. Potter, whatever he may think."

"Er... did the Headmistress want something?"

"No," Phineas said.

"Then why are you here?"

"I am also not obliged to answer impertinent questions from students."

He said nothing else, but was still in the portrait frame when Teddy finally went to sleep.

On Tuesday afternoon, Teddy had a mild relapse of his initial symptoms - he couldn't seem to move his fingers, and, though he could understand what people around him were saying, he found it frustratingly hard to respond to them. It didn't last long - forty minutes, at most - but it was quite enough for Madam Pomfrey to insist on another day or two of confinement. Ruthless snuck Checkmate in for a visit and Teddy enjoyed twenty minutes of solid purring before Madam Pomfrey stopped pretending not to notice and sent them back. Victoire and Marie came with a new pot for the aethracandia, as they'd discussed the subject and decided that Victoire's pink ceramic flower-pot with glittery high-heeled shoes painted on it was probably not to Teddy's taste.

"The plant is a present from Victoire," Marie said. "But the pot is from me." She presented it as Victoire fussed about with the original, preparing it for the transfer. The new flower-pot was simple red clay, though Marie had carefully carved a picture of a hawk onto it. "For your Patronus," she explained.

"Do you mind if I take a cutting?" Victoire asked. "I can get it to take root again, and then we'll both have one."

"You really don't have to give me the plant," Teddy said. "I could keep the cutting, if Madam Pomfrey wants me to have it around..."

Victoire gave him a stern look. "Madam Pomfrey asked if I had a second one, as she wants you to breathe more of it. A cutting won't do, and I'm only going to take a small one for myself, so you don't miss any. I asked Professor Longbottom for some good fertilizer, so it will grow back quickly." With an air of professional competence, she swept up the new pot, filled it with fresh earth and some fertilizer from a cloth bag, and started to re-pot the aethracandia. Looking down at it studiously, she said, "I, er... cleaned your room."

"I _told_ her not to," Marie said.

"I couldn't help it. I started when we were getting things out of the way so they could take care of you the other morning, and it didn't make sense to stop."

"Did you touch the Maze?" Teddy asked, alarmed.

"The what?"

"The wooden box... on the floor..."

"Oh, that. It was broken. I put it in your wardrobe."

"Did it do anything?"

Victoire and Marie looked at each other warily. "No, Teddy," Victoire said at last. "It didn't do anything." She bit her lip. "There was a letter from my dad - I didn't read it, but a lot of letters fell out of your jacket when I went to hang it up, and..." She looked anxiously at Marie.

"I didn't say anything to him," Teddy muttered. The idea of telling Bill that he'd kissed Victoire was the best of many good reasons not to repeat that particular experiment.

"Say anything about what?" Marie asked, looking avidly between them.

"I was thinking about having a surprise party for Aunt Gabrielle's birthday in July," Victoire lied. "I asked Teddy to help me plan it, but not tell Dad, as he'll tell Maman, and she won't be able to keep it a secret."

Marie didn't look like she believed it for a minute, but neither Teddy nor Victoire gave her anything to hang her suspicions on.

After they left, Madam Pomfrey gave him a Sleeping Draught, and he sank into sleep untroubled by dreams of any greater depth than a garden full of aethracandia plants, in which he, Victoire, Ruthless, and - oddly - James, who was for some reason a third year at Hogwarts, played a lazy game of cards under a friendly sun. At one point during the night, he opened his eyes into a different sort of dream, where a pretty girl with dark red hair sat at the bedside of a sallow boy with a hooked nose. The boy seemed to have been the victim of a nasty Jelly-Legs Jinx, and, though Teddy couldn't hear many words, he did catch, "get him, you'll see..." and "thinks he can get away..." The girl's lips were pressed together tightly, and she didn't say anything at all. Teddy blinked drowsily and went back to his other dream. The next time he moved, he was fairly sure the voices were real, just beyond the veil of sleep.

"I've never heard of it doing anything like this."

"Never? Not even once?" Teddy identified this voice as Uncle Harry's.

" _Never._ Harry, I promise, I would never have given Tonks's son something I thought would actually hurt him. I thought it might frighten him, and I worried about that, but this is far beyond anything we've seen it do with any trainee."

 _Maddie_ , Teddy thought, and tried to open his eyes. Unfortunately, the potion was still working, and he was trapped at the border of sleep.

There was a heavy thud, and the scrape of a chair, then Uncle Harry said, "We had a fight. Do you suppose that's why it happened?"

"It could be, if he did something foolish because of it. That wouldn't make it your fault, though. What was it about? I mean, unless it's not my business."

Uncle Harry sighed deeply. "It's really not. It's between Teddy and me. It had to do with his parents. Hermione said... Oh, she has a mad theory about Teddy feeling guilty, of all things. She says he thinks he's supposed to be miserable. They wouldn't want that. Why would he think that?"

The idea that Uncle Harry had taken him to Hermione to solve, like some particularly thorny maths problem, was infuriating, but he still couldn't seem to wake up.

There was a slight pop, then a soft sound, and Teddy guessed Maddie had Conjured a cushioned chair for herself. "I don't know," she said. "The mind is a Mystery for a reason. And it's not my Division."

"I want him out of this," Uncle Harry said, but it didn't come out like an order at all.

"I do, too," Maddie said. "But we've reached a point where it's Teddy's choice." Her voice suddenly became sharper. "And I think he's listening."

Uncle Harry's hand fell heavily onto his shoulder. "Teddy? Are you awake?"

Teddy tried to answer, but only came up with a non-committal grunt.

A moment later, a tingling energy went through him, and he was able to open his eyes. Bright sunlight was coming through the window, and Uncle Harry was pointing a wand at him. As soon as he was satisfied that Teddy was awake, he said, "I want you to talk to Maddie."

"What did you tell her?" Teddy asked. He'd only meant to find out how much she knew, but by the way Uncle Harry drew back, he supposed he could have found a better way to put it. He didn't bother to correct himself - Uncle Harry seemed to be talking to everyone about this.

"She knows what happened on the night we talked about," Uncle Harry said coolly. "I needed advice from an Unspeakable once, and your grandmother said I could trust Maddie." He nodded to her and left.

Maddie pulled her chair closer to the bed, then waved her wand to block sound. "What did you do?"

"I touched the Guide," Teddy admitted. "It was Bellatrix. She was laughing at me."

Maddie closed her eyes and rubbed her head. " _Touched_ her. What good did you think you would do?"

"I don't know. I guess I'd best start looking into different careers."

"No." She opened her eyes and leaned forward. "Not unless you want to. If you want me to take the Maze, I'll take it, and as your mum's friend, I'll be very glad to see you rid of it. But this wouldn't happen if you weren't very well attuned to this sort of work. If I took the Maze, it would just be something else, wouldn't it? You'd find a way to see what you need to see."

"Not everything," Teddy said. In his mind, he saw an ill-formed shadow in the smoke, saw it breaking into blurry prisms as he opened his eyes.

Maddie shook her head sharply and straightened up, pushing her hair behind her ear and becoming business-like. "Teddy, I want you to tell me everything you were doing with the Maze before this happened. I'll try to put it together and figure out what went wrong. Don't use it again until I've got an answer."

Teddy nodded. He could always use the time to fix it, so she wouldn't find out he'd managed to break it in the bargain. Slowly, he started to tell her about his search for Brimmann, about his visit with Sirius, about Greyback's strange turn as a Guide. She noted it all in a scroll, which she tucked into her bag before she left.

She stood up and ran her fingers over Teddy's forehead. "I'm sorry I got you into this," she said.

"I wanted to do it."

"Yes, but..." She smiled ruefully. "Your mum would have my head for this. Please don't hurt yourself anymore."

Teddy nodded. He had no desire to spend more time in the hospital wing.

As she left, he glanced over at the portrait of the boy with steam coming out of his ears, and caught the last movement of green robes as Phineas Nigellus slipped out of the frame.


	13. Little Things

**Chapter 13:**

 **Little Things**

Madam Pomfrey gave him a suspicious look on Thursday morning. "There's nothing you're not telling me? No aches or pains?"

"Nothing."

"Can you feel everything?"

"Yes."

"I mean _everything_ , Mr. Lupin."

"So do I."

She narrowed her eyes, as if expecting him to confess to some paralysis of a personal nature, but finally appeared to accept his answer. "You're not seeing or hearing anything odd?"

"Just those whispers, and you heard them, too."

She looked frustrated not to have anything to hold him on. "All right, then. You may go. But if you develop any numbness, lose your appetite, or start speaking in rhyme, see me immediately. Other than that, please do your best to stay away."

"Yes, Ma'am."

"Well, that's that. Go on. You have classes. Don't skip your meals, either." She frowned and shook her head. "I'm getting too old to worry about you, Teddy Lupin. I didn't spend seven years keeping your father in one piece just to watch his only son self-destruct."

Teddy had been fighting the urge to answer her in rhyme, but the mention of Dad killed the idea. "I'll be more careful."

"Get on with it, then. The Scrimgeour girl brought you fresh robes while you were sleeping." She pointed to a carelessly folded pile of black cloth on the table, then Conjured the screen and went back to her office.

Teddy pulled on his robes, grateful for their crispness after four days in soft pajamas. He wondered when Ruthless had come, and if she'd sat with him at all, or kissed him in his sleep. He thought he ought to have at least dreamed something like that if she had, but for a moment, he let himself daydream about it-that she'd come in while he was sleeping, sat by the bed, held his hand, then finally leaned over and kissed him nicely, whispering that it wasn't nonsense when he was ill. Then his traitor mind twisted the scene, and she was sitting by his bedside, looking at him crossly after dumping his robes off without ceremony. In this version, instead of kissing him, she hissed, "Thanks for making my Defense classes awkward. I'm trying to get an apprenticeship with your Uncle Harry's division, you know, and you've gone and picked a fight with him, about things he probably knows more about, _and_ you said hateful things. And he knows I'm your girlfriend sometimes. Thanks for nothing."

Teddy tried to push the second notion away and go back to the first-Ruthless wasn't one to say things when no one was listening, after all-but by the time he'd finished straightening himself out for class, the pleasant fantasy of having been kissed in his sleep had begun to seem as realistic as one of James's loopy, incomprehensible crayon drawings, while the denunciation took on the sharp clarity of a new photograph. He'd started to rehearse what he might say to her-beginning with the fact that she'd been the one to break up, so she didn't get any say in how things went-when he heard a throat being cleared on the other side of the screen. He half expected it to be Ruthless, and reminded himself to at least wait to find out if his daydream was real before starting an argument, but it wasn't.

It was Uncle Harry.

The fantasies shattered and were swept away. Teddy sat down on the edge of the bed.

"Are you coming to my class?" Uncle Harry asked.

"I have to. It's O.W.L. year."

"Well, it's words. I guess that's progress." He pulled up the chair and leaned forward, elbows on his knees, hands folded tightly. His glasses and wedding ring flashed in the morning sun. "I hate this, Teddy," he said.

Teddy looked over at him from the corner of his eye, and remembered playing Auror-versus-Lethifold in Granny's greenhouse. Uncle Harry had Charmed a large black blanket to follow them around, and Teddy had never questioned the fact that it tended to move every time Uncle Harry "cursed" it. These games would end with Teddy wrapped up in the blanket, and Uncle Harry tossing him up toward the ceiling while he laughed. It should have been Dad's job, Teddy thought, but it didn't bring anger at Uncle Harry this time, just a sort of vague, unfocused grief that he thought he'd hit the end of years ago. "I hate it, too," he said. The image of Ruthless denouncing him in his sleep came again, and he braced himself. He could be bigger about this. "I'm sorry I said what I did about the people who died. That wasn't your fault, it was Voldemort's, and I'm sure you'd have found a better way if there was one."

It was something he'd heard Granny say, in one variation or another, on many occasions, and it came out sounding rehearsed, even though he hadn't even planned to say it, let alone practiced.

"Thank you," Uncle Harry said. Teddy waited for him to say he was sorry about the Stone, but he didn't. Instead, he said, "I'll let you get breakfast before class. I just wanted to see you before then. You know in class that-"

"-that you're here to lecture."

"Yes. And someone's visiting today who... well, let's say I consider it wiser than usual to keep the personal to ourselves." With this, he stood and left. The whole conversation seemed incomplete somehow.

Teddy had History of Magic before Defense Against the Dark Arts, and Donzo slipped him the last few days of notes. Geoffrey had apparently derailed normal lecturing on Tuesday with a long rant about how the goblins would have been better guarantors of public trust than the Ministry (Donzo had, for some reason, taken careful notes even during Geoffrey's sputterings), so Teddy had really only missed a class and a half in three days. About halfway through class, when everyone other than Geoffrey was trying to find a good daydream to slip into, Donzo kicked Teddy's ankle. Teddy looked over and noticed that he'd covered one of his eyes with black fur.

The wood grain on Teddy's desk re-arranged itself to say, "I'll race you."

Teddy turned two of his fingernails into feathers-straight morphing this time, though it took longer than it should have-and responded, "You're on."

Corky, who had the first class period free and used it to work on the _Charmer_ two doors down, was waiting in the corridor. Teddy waved to Donzo, who headed off for his Muggle Studies class, then let Corky lead the way into the crowd.

"You're not going to drop dead on us in class, right?" he asked, weaving through a knot of third year Ravenclaws on their way to Binns. Story Shacklebolt was with them, and he took a moment to make an exaggerated face over his fate, holding up his History of Magic textbook like a shield, before one of his mates dragged him along.

"I'm fine," Teddy told Corky when they got to the stairs. "Madam Pomfrey kept me longer than she needed to."

"Honoria wants to know what made you sick."

"Why?"

"For the _Charmer._ Fair warning. She'll hound you about it."

"Why would anyone who reads the _Charmer_ care?"

Corky shrugged and led the way to the corridor that led to Robards' classroom. "Eh, weird stuff. Did anyone tell you about the flower in the Weasley swamp?"

"What?"

"Some weird flower-big red thing-showed up in that swamp in the third floor hallway. Personally, I think it was Victoire. She's been too quiet this year. I bet she's getting warmed up for some good pranks, and she is Longbottom's little pet. Or maybe Longbottom did it, just to stir things up."

Teddy thought it was more likely to have been Victoire-probably with George's help-if someone used Fred's swamp to start a rumor, but since he knew what was making her quiet, he didn't think she was actually plotting anything. "So just a flower? That's _Charmer_ -worthy these days?"

"Couple of first years have seen kids they don't recognize, but then they're gone."

"What?"

"Rumor has it, they're all you, just messing with us. You know... morphing."

"Oh, right. Of course. Just like me, really. I love to scare first years while pretending to be sick. Everyone knows that."

"So Honoria's determined to get to the bottom of it."

"What do the teachers say?"

"That first years can't tell the difference between a ghost and a post. I mean, they're nicer about it, but I think they've been around Hogwarts long enough to know when something's actually _weird_ , as opposed to what passes for normal around here."

Teddy thought about the ghosts in the wall that he and Madam Pomfrey had heard, but didn't say anything. Corky was right-if she thought anything really strange was going on, she'd have said something, and someone else would have investigated it, and if it _was_ anything odd, they'd probably have the place in lock-down.

They reached the door of the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, and Teddy took a deep breath before going in, trying to leave anything personal outside the door. Corky waited for him without saying anything. They went in together.

Uncle Harry was sitting at the desk, looking distastefully at a man in a black robe with a hood. Teddy couldn't see the man's face. Honoria, who was already in her seat, was looking at him strangely, her quill held halfway down to her note scroll, as if she'd forgotten whether she was getting it out or putting it away. Jane and Brendan were talking quietly. As Teddy took his seat, Maurice blew in, obviously from outside (it was raining, and he was soaked), and muttered something about being sorry for being late, and Dapple, and Buckbeak, and Hagrid. Teddy guessed he'd used his free period to help Hagrid with the hippogriffs, but a guess was the best he could call it.

Uncle Harry closed the door and flicked his wand at it a second time, using nonverbal magic. He dried Maurice off with another wand movement, then came around the front of the desk and sat down, sending their homework papers flying back to them in the same movement. Teddy only had time to glance down and note that he'd got a good mark, with only a few wrong questions, before Uncle Harry started to speak.

"O.W.L. year is always difficult in this class. It's the time you decide whether you mean to go any further with it. It can be a somewhat disturbing course of study." He picked up a piece of chalk and twisted it absently between his fingers. "Something I've heard over and over again from students is how they are inherently smarter than wizards in the past, that they would never be fooled by dark wizards. I remember being sure of it myself."

"Well, you didn't get fooled," Corky said.

"It's hard to be fooled when they're trying to kill you," Uncle Harry told him. "It's easier when they like you. Which is why I've invited someone else to speak to you today." He turned to the other man and nodded.

The man reached up and pushed his hood down. He had pale, white-blond hair and a pointed face. Slowly, he reached down to his wrist, then pushed up the thick black sleeve. Teddy drew back. He hadn't met this man (despite being a fairly close relative), but he had a good idea of who he was, and he couldn't imagine what he was doing in the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom.

Maurice, who'd been fidgeting around, trying to get his things together, stopped dead. "That's the Dark Mark."

Teddy looked at the exposed flesh of the man's arm. On it was a fading scar, just a small one, a skull with a snake coming from its mouth.

The man nodded. "My name is Draco Malfoy," he said. "Are you quite prepared to sit still and listen, or shall I give a brief demonstration to prove who I am?"

Maurice blanched and sat back, quiet, his hands folded on his desk.

"I invited you here to talk to my students," Uncle Harry said, "not threaten them."

"These are your Slytherins," Malfoy said. "They know what I'm doing."

Maurice continued to look down at the wood grain on his desk, but said, quite clearly, "Slytherin solves its own problems now." Slowly, he looked up and met Malfoy's eyes. "We don't let things get out of control anymore."

Malfoy leaned over him. "Really? And how, precisely, do you do that?"

"However I need to."

"Interesting. Good story, wouldn't you say, Higgs?"

Honoria said nothing, though Teddy saw a flash of green as she put away one of her recording quills.

Malfoy looked around, then craned his neck to see Uncle Harry's class list. "Ah, Lynch," he said, heading for Brendan. "Pity your dad squandered the family reputation on his Quidditch skills. You could have been someone now. Of course, a lot of that was Krum's fault."

"Krum's a lousy cheat," Brendan muttered.

"True. And he's done it to your dad what, three times now?"

"Four."

"Four. It's starting to get personal, wouldn't you say?" Malfoy didn't wait for an answer. He rounded on Jane. "And you? A Mudblood in Slytherin!"

"Malfoy!" Uncle Harry barked. "You will not use that word in my class. I don't care what you're here to talk about."

Malfoy adopted an exaggeratedly apologetic attitude. "So sorry. _Muggle-born_. I'm sure she's heard the other word before, though. Haven't you? Probably makes you angry."

Jane narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms protectively over her chest. "That's a bit outdated, Mr. Malfoy."

"Is it? My mistake, of course." He moved over to Corky. "And look at this-you're really a Gamp, aren't you? She went over and married an Arkerson or-"

"Atkinson," Corky corrected.

"Atkinson, of course," Malfoy said dismissively. "Still, Gamp's a goodish name. Which brings us to Teddy Lupin."

Teddy saw Uncle Harry shift uncomfortably, but he didn't stop things.

"A Gryffindor among Slytherins. Son of a war heroes. A Black to boot, and a Metamorphmagus. If I were recruiting, I think I'd try for Teddy Lupin first."

Teddy's stomach clenched. "Sure you would. Son of a werewolf and a half-blood?"

"Oh, but as Miss Hunter so rightly put it, that's all very outdated. And we _are_ blood, after all."

"I don't care."

This seemed to be the exact answer Malfoy wanted. He smirked. "Yes, I had an aunt-we both did, actually-who liked to deny her family. She came to a bad end. Though not until she'd brought a bad end to-"

Teddy was on his feet before Malfoy finished speaking. He felt Corky grab him from behind and yank him backward as Malfoy was pushed magically away from him. Uncle Harry's wand was out.

"Malfoy, if you ever pull that again-"

Malfoy dusted himself off, unconcerned. "You wanted me to scare them, Potter. A little demonstration. It's not my fault that your godson is the easiest mark."

"I don't do Dark magic," Teddy said.

"And you don't need to," Malfoy said. "You're easy to provoke." He looked away from Teddy. "Don't imagine that I can't see the rest of you thinking that you wouldn't be nearly as easy. Lynch fell into the same trap as Lupin. Hunter does the opposite. She shuts herself down. Atkinson... well, I don't know. I expect he's too confident in his own righteousness, but I'll admit, he's the only one I haven't got the measure of yet. Are you sure you're a Slytherin?" The others laughed nervously, and Malfoy warmed to them. "Higgs at least has the decency to know she's ravenously ambitious. And of course, Mr. Burke here is so devoted to the case against Dark Slytherins that he's willing to address the problem-how did he put it?-however he needs to." He Summoned a chair and sat down close to the front row of seats. "There's nothing wrong with any of this. A bit of healthy ambition will get Miss Higgs a good career, and Miss Hunter will be able to keep a cool head when things go down around her. Lynch has something driving him, and Burke... well, a Burke with his eye on things can't be a bad thing, though in the presence of an Auror, I'll duly advise against vigilantism. As to Lupin, he'd hardly be human if he didn't jump on me for that particular comment. Nothing wrong with losing your temper over an outrage."

"So what's your point?" Corky asked. He was still standing and hadn't let go of Teddy's shoulders, and he was exerting a good deal of pressure.

"My point, Atkinson, is that every one of you has a door in your mind, and it leads to some empty place inside of you, and it's not that difficult to pick the lock. Don't expect the next Dark wizard to try to use the same key as the last one. If I'd chosen Mr. Burke's mission in life, I wouldn't be listening for someone complaining about werewolves and Mu-ggleborns. They'll have the whole Ministry on them anyway. I'd watch for something new."

"Like what?"

"Hard to say."

"And convenient for you," Corky said. "Telling us to ignore everything _you_ did wrong and go looking for something else."

"I didn't tell you to ignore it. I said not to bother _looking_ for it. There's a difference." He shook his head. "Sit down, Atkinson, I think Mr. Lupin's tantrum is over."

Warily, Corky let go of Teddy's shoulders. Teddy glared at Malfoy. He'd spent a year studying Occlumency with the woman who'd killed Teddy's mother. He'd sheltered her.

Malfoy glanced at Uncle Harry, who still had his wand out, and didn't look inclined to put it away. Teddy couldn't imagine hating anyone in his year as much as they seemed to hate each other.

"What was _your_ door?" Jane asked. Teddy thought she was making an effort to make her voice seem warmer.

Malfoy pursed his lips, then leaned forward. His blond hair fell like a curtain over his eyes, and he was quiet for a long time before he looked up. "The easy answer would be my family. Certainly that was what kept me in. It's not an entirely true answer, but it's partially true, at least. To deny the Dark Lord was to deny my father, which I wouldn't do then and don't do now. But that was at the end, when I'd have rather left. Before that...?" He shrugged. "There was pride involved, and there was a _glamor_ to it. We were going to ignore the stuffy, hide-bound Ministry and all of its petty little rules. We were above it all. The famous Harry Potter was nothing special- _we_ were. _I_ was."

Jane pressed on. "Did you think of yourself as evil?"

"It occurred to me that the world at large might say such a thing," Malfoy admitted. "But I decided that just meant the world at large was easily duped by idiotic rules set by stuffy old women. What they called 'evil' was just innovative and daring, outside the bounds of their imaginations."

A cold thought crept into Teddy's mind, a suspicion that crowded out the lecture. _What they called evil... innovative and daring..._ Uncle Harry hadn't brought in this monster to lecture fifth years. He'd brought him to reinforce the idea that stepping outside the bounds of normal magic was evil, no matter how you justified it.

He was here to talk about the Resurrection Stone, even though he'd probably never heard of it or been apprised of the real subject of his little talk.

Teddy's eyes snapped up to Uncle Harry, who was watching Malfoy's lecture with distaste, though the Slytherins, at least, seemed to be getting a great deal from it. He wasn't looking at Teddy, but was he thinking of their conversation? Was he wondering, "Does Teddy understand now?"

Teddy felt his face flush at the thought of Uncle Harry manipulating him as easily as this Death Eater had, and, even worse, at the thought that Uncle Harry seemed to believe him in need of instructions on how to avoid being evil. He barely listened to Malfoy's pro forma advice about looking carefully at anything he ran across-this was first year Defense Against the Dark Arts stuff-and didn't speak again in class.

When the bell rang, Honoria rushed up to the front of the class and started to pester Malfoy for an interview for the _Charmer_. Teddy gathered his things to leave.

"Lupin!"

He stopped and turned. Malfoy had freed himself of Honoria (Teddy was willing to bet it had taken an agreement to meet later for questioning) and was beckoning with one hand. Uncle Harry stopped arranging papers and moved closer, looking suspicious. Malfoy ignored him.

Teddy thought about just turning his back, but didn't. He went back to the desk.

"We _are_ blood," Malfoy said again.

"So what?"

"So, I'm sorry. About what I said. It was just a-"

"It's all right," Teddy said, looking at Uncle Harry. "I know what you were invited to do."

Uncle Harry shook his head. "Teddy, the world doesn't revolve around you."

"I guess we can't all be Harry Potter." Teddy turned and left. He wasn't surprised to hear someone following him, or feel a hand on his shoulder, but he hadn't entirely expected to find Draco Malfoy following him when he turned around. He pulled away.

Malfoy grimaced. "I offered to babysit you when you were little," he said. "A little atonement. And something of a pathetic payback, but I suppose you don't need to know that. Your granny turned me down. I guess I understand."

Teddy didn't know what Malfoy expected him to say. He said nothing.

"I kept an eye on you, anyway. Read things about you in the _Daily Prophet_ , and even Higgs's little school paper-I have a subscription. There's not much of the family left. Nothing I read mentioned what a little snot you are." He smiled faintly. "I suppose that's pot calling the kettle Black, but between us, that's bad joke."

"Is that why you followed me out here? To insult me?"

"No. I just thought you might like to know that I've talked to the O.W.L. classes every year for the last seven years."

"No one's ever mentioned it."

"I prefer people not to gossip, so I hex the door. You'll find it difficult to discuss as well, and I'm afraid Higgs will find it even more difficult to write about. But whatever secret message you think I was here to impart to your ears only, think again. If you're hearing secret messages in what I said, then you need to do some serious thinking about whatever you're up to, because you've got the guilts about it. I didn't put them there." He pulled his hood up. "That's my good deed for the year. I suggest you get your head in order, Lupin."

He walked away. Students in the corridor moved around him in arcs without seeming to see him, and Teddy wondered if he'd hexed the cloak as well.

He turned back toward the classroom. Uncle Harry was standing in the doorway, looking cross. Teddy took a step toward him, but he turned around and shut the door.

For a long time, Teddy watched the door, both sure it would open and convinced it wouldn't. The latter conviction proved true, and when he went over and looked through the narrow window, he saw Uncle Harry sitting at the desk, his fingers buried in his hair, his eyes closed behind his glasses.

Teddy reached down and turned the doorknob.

Something thudded into him and he jumped. Marie Weasley smiled at him sheepishly and said, "Sorry, Teddy! Are you feeling better?"

He didn't have a chance to answer, as the rest of the first year Gryffindors were pouring into the classroom around him.

Uncle Harry stood up slowly and looked at Teddy with frustration. Teddy backed out of the door.

He had his last period before dinner free, and he made his way up to Gryffindor Tower. He'd been gone for days. Checkmate had apparently been shuttling back and forth between Ruthless and Victoire (or perhaps, from her point of view, between her new friend Oggie and her littermate Bushy), and he didn't like to neglect her. Granny had drummed into his head early on that the family pets needed them both, and not just for food and water. That had been before Checkmate, when Bludger and Quaffle had been alive. As he climbed through the portrait hole, it occurred to Teddy for the first time that she might have been talking to Mum (or yelling at her) about leaving when she had a responsibility of her own. It had certainly seemed to be about more than dragging strings around for the two lazy old toms.

An image of Bludger fighting his way across the garden with his belly ripped out came unbidden to Teddy's mind, and he tried to replace it with the thought of the strings, and Bludger's deep, almost silent purr, and the way it had rumbled under his hand. It didn't work. It never worked, and he always hated it when people told him to "Remember the good times," because they always seemed to think there was some talismanic power to it, and the power had never in Teddy's life worked.

He stopped just inside the Common Room and took a deep breath. This was no good.

The Common Room was empty except for one chair in front of the fireplace, where a redheaded boy with glasses was reading a heavy-looking book that he held in one hand, and writing a letter with the other hand. He didn't appear to notice Teddy. Teddy thought he was one of the third years. There were too many of them to keep track of. He ignored the boy and went up to his room.

"Checks?" he called. "Checkmate? Where are you?" There was a scrabbling of claws on the floor behind him, and he turned to find his cat hurrying in after a run on the stairs. He scooped her up and kissed her head. "Are you glad to see me? I missed you. Were you good for Victoire and Ruthless?"

Checkmate didn't seem inclined to answer the questions. She buried her nose behind his ear and wiggled it against his skin while she kneaded his chest and neck desperately. He scratched between her shoulders, ignoring the sharp little pricks of her claws.

"Victoire wasn't kidding about cleaning up," he said. "I think she alphabetized my books. Did she do that, Checks?" He looked over his book shelf. She'd arranged his school books by subject, his Muggles and Minions books by function, and his Fifi LaFolle collection by year. His face went warm... she'd actually seen all of the bloody _Enchanted Encounters_ books right out in the open. And...

He groaned. She'd left a note in _Veronica's Victory_ : _Teddy, may I borrow this one? It looks very good, and I can't fault the letters in the title!-V_ He didn't think she'd really like it. It was mostly an adventure in the Canary Islands, about trying to stop a deadly landslide that would cause vast devastation, though Fifi had pasted in one of her usual sweet-savage romances. There'd been a triangle with Veronica at the apex, and a dark wizard versus a kindly Muggle scientist, if it was the book he was thinking of. He pulled it out and set it aside for Victoire, hoping she would at least have the common sense to not mention who she'd borrowed it from.

He braced himself and opened the wardrobe. The robes were hanging neatly, filed before shirts, which came before ties, which came before trousers. On the floor, his shoes were lined up by darkness, from white trainers to black dress shoes. At the end of the row of shoes, set neatly against the wall to hold up its skewed side, was the Daedalus Maze. Teddy leaned in close to it. It wasn't thrumming or vibrating, and he heard nothing unusual. Victoire had set the piece that had splintered off of it on the floor of the wardrobe, propped up against the Maze. It was a clean break. It shouldn't take long to repair it.

She'd straightened the papers on his desk and cleaned up the spill he'd caused when he'd knocked against it trying to get to his feet on Sunday morning. Nothing had been discarded. Piles were sorted by type and fastened with different-colored clips. One pile was labeled "Homework?", another was "Stories," and a third was "Scrap?" On the other corner of his desk was the pile of letters Uncle Harry had brought, which he'd never got to. The one from Bill was left conspicuously on top, with a note that had only several question marks drawn across it. He opened it.

 _Dear Teddy_ , Bill had written, _I imagine Victoire is unhappy with me, for reasons which are hers to share or not_ -Teddy's mind flashed to the afternoon at Buckbeak's paddock- _and I'd hoped you'd be willing to spend some time with her. My aim was not to make her unhappy. With that out of the way..._

He went on with a chatty story about life at Shell Cottage, but it was clear that his intent had been to have Teddy play big brother to Victoire. Teddy had never been anyone's real big brother, but he'd had big brotherly duties with Uncle Harry's children, and he felt morally sure that kissing of the sort he'd engaged in with Victoire was far outside the bounds.

Under Bill's letter was one from Granny, which was, as Uncle Harry had suggested, just checking up on him. He dashed off a quick reply, guessing that Madam Pomfrey had kept her out of the loop about how badly he'd hurt himself, or she'd have been up. Under Granny's letter was one from Lily, which was mostly about getting a dog. She was convinced that she'd find one who would get along capitally with Martian, even though James was "vary stuped" about it. She'd also got a new dolly from George, which told her funny jokes every night. The dolly-whose name, Megrez Cassiopeia Deneb Vega Potter, had obviously come from the parlor wall ("Kreacher loves her!")-"wrote," _Q: How did the cat Animagus do in school? A: She had PURR-fect marks!_

Teddy started to pick up a piece of parchment to write back, then put it away. Uncle Harry hadn't looked like he'd be happy to see letters from Teddy in the children's hands just now.

Under Lily's letter was Al's (very short, as he said he'd been drawing pictures for James's), and under Al's was one from George, which included a run-down of Teddy's share of the profits for several toys Teddy had interest in, either as a co-creator or as Dad's heir (a Metamorphmagus doll Dad had designed had been selling well this year). This gold went straight into a Gringott's vault, and Teddy had no particular idea how much was there by now. The one from Luna was just a chatty note about a new kind of magical bird she was studying in China.

James's letter was thickest, and it was on the bottom. After a brief note explaining that Lily was trying ruin Martian's life by bringing a dog into the house, he went right into the story Teddy had left for him, with Sirius finding the entrance to the treasure room somewhere in Mexico. James had apparently pestered Hermione or Luna for creature books, because as soon as Sirius went through the door, he started battling a feathered serpent that was guarding the trove.

 _...and he Summoned his motorbike all the way from England and he SWOOPED down, and there were FEATHERS everywhere, and then Sirius got out his wand and he turned the serpent into a lot of canaries (which Uncle Ron says are more scary, but I don't think so!) and... VRRROM! He dropped down through them, and they all flew away, and there was the book that would teach Buckbeak to fly again. Only Buckbeak didn't know how to read, so Sirius had to read it to him. He thought he should teach Buckbeak to read, but he didn't know how to do that. But before they finished, there was a dog, and Sirius turned into a Animagus dog (which isn't the same as a real dog) to fight with it so that it wouldn't scare Buckbeak. While they were fighting, a nice man from the village who used to take care of the treasure until Sirius found it started reading to Buckbeak again, and next thing they knew, he could fly! Sirius took the book and enough treasure to help the Princess at home, but he left the rest with the village, and said they could spend it however they wanted, because it was theirs now. They were very happy, and bought new houses, where there weren't any dogs allowed, except for Sirius._

 _So Sirius and Buckbeak flew away, headed back across the ocean with the motorbike flying behind them, and they were halfway there when suddenly, the sky got very dark and the wind started to blow, and there was lightning and_

At this point, James had drawn a big question mark to leave the next section to Teddy. Teddy thought it might be fun to work in what he was learning about Brimmann, and maybe have the storm blow Sirius, Buckbeak, and the motorbike to Africa, where they'd meet the woman who had put her Blistering Bloodspots curse on Brimmann's crew, and, he thought with a smile, they might even meet up with one of Sirius's friends who would really enjoy teaching Buckbeak to read (which in a James story was well within the realm of possibility)... but he didn't start to write. There was something that had to be done first, maybe before he'd even be allowed to write. He plucked Checkmate up from his lap, where she'd settled during his reading.

"I have to go back downstairs," he said. "But I'll be back soon."

She'd got over her delight at seeing him, and squirmed away to sleep under his desk.

Teddy opened the bottom drawer-its contents were mercifully untouched-and pulled out the Marauder's Map. It showed students leaving their last classes. Uncle Harry's class had already let out. He was headed down a corridor toward Professor Longbottom's office. Teddy put the Map away, then took a deep breath and steeled himself to go after. He needed to know if he could write back to James and Al and Lily. He assumed he'd have to promise not to mention anything, but he wouldn't have, anyway-he didn't think it was his business to get between James and his father.

By the time he got out, the corridors were teeming with students heading back to their dormitories to gather things before dinner, or going to detentions, or going about their own business. He ducked around them absently. On the third floor, he found himself taking the path that led by Fred's Swamp, where several students were tossing in sweets for luck on exams. In the midst of this, he could see a huge red flower that had never been there before, though it looked familiar. Teddy supposed he'd seen it in a book somewhere. He passed by without examining it closely.

Professor Longbottom's office was a pleasant room on the ground floor, filled with his plants and smelling of soil. It was one of Teddy's favorite places in the castle, but today, approaching it was a grim, thankless task. The crowds were thinning out by the time he got there, and only a few students passed him. But the time he was only one door away, he was the last one left. The door was slightly ajar. He could hear voices coming from inside.

"...fifteen, Harry. It goes with the territory. You were a right pain to Dumbledore at fifteen."

"I know," Uncle Harry said irritably. "I thought he was keeping things from me that I should have known."

"So did Voldemort," Professor Longbottom said. China clinked. "Tea?"

"No, I don't want tea." Uncle Harry sighed, and there was a thud as he sat down. Teddy pictured him in one of the chairs in front of Professor Longbottom's desk, maybe the one with the liana vines growing over it. "I just can't believe he let Malfoy see that. _Malfoy_. And you know something, Neville? He _sounded_ like Malfoy. 'We can't all be Harry Potter.'" On this, his voice picked up a high, whining tone, and Teddy stopped with one hand raised to knock. His stomach rolled lazily over. Uncle Harry went on, now sounding rather plaintive. "I just don't know how it got this far. I don't know what happened, or how it happened so fast."

There was a series of soft sounds, and Teddy thought Professor Longbottom was moving his plants around to water them and get them natural light. Finally, he said, "Harry, this had to happen."

"Remus and Tonks wouldn't want him acting like this, but I sincerely doubt he'll listen to me on that."

"He wouldn't listen to them, either," Professor Longbottom said. "It's not about them."

"You don't know."

"I don't need to know the details. But he loves you, Harry, and he knows you love him, and it will blow over. Are you going to leave after Robards comes back?"

Teddy tried to move away, but couldn't.

"They're sort of insistent that I come back to work."

Professor Longbottom's voice took on a rather amused tone. "You could tell them that you're investigating the 'mysterious visitors.'"

"I'm actually wondering if I _should_ look into it."

"I have my eye on it, Harry, and believe me, I'll let you know. I'd guess it's just some odd time hiccup in the castle. You know Hogwarts."

"And that flower?"

"Could be Victoire, which is what the students think."

"She says it's not."

"Could be any of my Herbology students, for that matter. It's an easy plant to get hold of. A Congolese Fire Flower. They grow like weeds in the Congo rain forest. It's all the Ministry there can do to keep them hidden from Muggles..."

Teddy's head felt light, and his ears were ringing.

In the Congo rain forest. In West Africa.

He hadn't seen the flower in a book.

He'd seen it in the Daedalus Maze.


	14. The Halloween Feast

**Chapter 14:**

 **The Halloween Feast**

Teddy turned on his heel and ran up the corridor. He heard the door open behind him and Uncle Harry called "Teddy!", but he didn't stop. He ran up the stairs, around a corner, toward the pungent smell of the swamp Fred and George Weasley had left behind, or at least the small patch of it that Flitwick had preserved and liked to show to second year Charms students as an example of what truly bright wizards could do with the subject.

The Congolese Fire Flower was still there. It was more than a foot across, with acrid smelling pollen that was actually burning at the center of the petals. Teddy hadn't noticed that in the Maze, because he hadn't been looking at the plant life.

But it had been there. He'd seen these flowers at the tree line around the clearing where Brimmann had held his infernal party.

Teddy reached out, his hand shaking, and touched one of the petals. It had an unpleasant, metallic feel to it. It had to be made of some strong magical material to keep the fire at its core from spreading. He guessed that pollen blew away as ash. That would make it difficult for the Congolese government to control the spread. It would-

"Teddy?"

Teddy looked over his shoulder. Uncle Harry looked winded from running after him, but Teddy had never even heard the footsteps.

"I'm sorry you overheard that," Uncle Harry said. "I didn't know you were out there, and I was just letting off steam."

Teddy blinked, trying to remember what he'd overheard before "Congolese Fire Flower," then it came back to him. Uncle Harry complaining about something he'd said. He shook his head. "It's all right."

"Are _you_?"

"Yeah. Fine. When did this show up?"

"Er... while you were in the hospital wing."

" _When?_ "

Uncle Harry looked at him carefully, then said, "We noticed it on Monday morning. Teddy, is there something you want to tell me?"

Teddy was about to tell him everything, beginning with the day he'd spent in the Maze with Maddie right up to the point where he'd tried to throttle Bellatrix to death before she could kill Mum, but he stopped. He _knew_ what Uncle Harry would say. He'd forget about their argument, yes, and he wouldn't be angry-Uncle Harry had always been patient if Teddy made mistakes-but he'd be _suspicious._ He'd say, "We can fix it," and maybe he'd be _able_ to fix it, but then he'd look at Teddy, and his mind would go to the Stone, to the Shrieking Shack, even to the Marauder's Map. He'd think of Teddy's offhand comment this summer about tearing the Veil open, and about the imaginary siblings that had occupied so much of Teddy's mind two years ago, after he'd found their names on a bookmark. He never mentioned those things unless Teddy brought them up, but he never _forgot_ about them. That was why he'd kept the Resurrection Stone to himself in the first place. He didn't _trust_ Teddy.

And this wouldn't help matters, at least not until Teddy had proved that he could fix any problems he might have inadvertently caused.

"Teddy?"

"No," Teddy said. "It's just odd, don't you think?"

"I'm getting used to 'odd,'" Uncle Harry said. "I don't especially care for our current variety of 'odd,' but I'm getting used to it."

"Are you leaving tomorrow?"

"Yes. Robards will be back next week."

Teddy nodded. "I... er... I read the letters you brought."

"And?"

"May I write back to James and Al and Lily?"

Uncle Harry's face seemed to droop, and he took a few steps back to a bench. He sat down and took his glasses off, leaning forward and pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes. "Teddy," he said, "I want you to listen to me here, and actually try to believe what I'm saying." He looked up. "I shut the door because I didn't want to say anything I'd regret later. I was angry. But I will _never_ lock you out of my life, or out of the children's. Do you understand that? And believe it?"

Teddy nodded. He was fairly certain Uncle Harry's tune would change if he knew that Teddy had deliberately tried to kill Bellatrix, and might have caused some sort of leak in time and space that was spreading around Hogwarts, but he probably thought he meant it. "I won't tell them about any of this," he said. "I don't want to get between you."

"I appreciate that," Uncle Harry said. "Though I'd much prefer that there was no 'this' to tell them about or not."

There was little else to say on the matter, and after a while, Teddy went back to investigating the Fire Flower, which was interesting in its own way. Perhaps someone really _had_ planted it. It didn't feel right. It was too big a coincidence. But Uncle Harry had said not to assume the world revolved around Teddy Lupin. Maybe it was something else altogether. Maybe...

 _Maybe you're trying to weasel out of it,_ he told himself sternly. _Maybe you need to deal with it instead._

A hand landed on his shoulder, and he turned to find that Uncle Harry had stood up. For the first time, Teddy noticed that they were literally seeing eye to eye, if not in any figurative sense.

"I'm going to go back to Neville's now. If you decide you want to work this out after I head back, you don't have to wait for Christmas, you know. Just owl me, or Floo, or send your Patronus, or get on your broomstick and fly to London, to hell with school rules. The door's unlocked."

With that, he left, shoulders hunched.

Teddy supposed that he could call out now, run after him, and fix everything. But he didn't.

There was another problem that he needed to look at first, or no sentimental reconciliation was going to help.

He spent a bit longer looking at the Fire Flower, tracing its root system as far as he could, skirting his hand under the wet soil to feel it. Nothing seemed abnormal about it. It was just a plant that had no business being there.

He went back to Gryffindor Tower without going to supper. He didn't think he could eat, anyway. Victoire wasn't in the Common Room, so he couldn't ask her about the missing letter, but Ruthless was by the fire. He went over and sat down beside her, wondering if she'd start chastising him as she had in his fantasy this morning. Instead, she just smiled and said, "Lupin, good to have you back. Whatever you were doing, don't do it again, or I'll have to hurt you." She had an open box of chocolates, and pushed it toward him. "Have one. Madam Pomfrey said we should push it on you whenever we could."

"Oh. Great."

Teddy happened to be looking at a small chair half hidden by the Lionbloom. No one was in it, but when he blinked, he thought he saw eyes in the shadows, and when he blinked again, a stern looking girl with black braids was sitting there, studying intently.

He jumped.

Ruthless glanced at the newcomer. "Hey! You!"

The girl didn't seem to hear her, or at least didn't respond in any way.

Ruthless frowned and got up. She reached out, but Teddy grabbed her back. "Don't," he said.

She turned on him, confounded. "Since when?"

"Just don't, all right?"

She sat back down. "I hadn't seen one yet. Only a few of the first years. I asked Potter about it in Defense Against the Dark Arts, and he said the staff's looking into it, but they're not _dangerous._ They don't even notice that we're here."

"Has anyone touched one?"

"Don't know, but I thought we should at least find out if they're solid."

"Brilliant. Just stick your hand into something without knowing what it is."

Ruthless grinned, then jumped up and grabbed a Gryffindor banner. She flung it around her shoulders and stood on an ottoman. "Gryffindor, home of the courageous, the fearless-"

Teddy smiled and threw a quill at her. He was going through the motions, but the motions felt good. "The brainless."

"The careless," Ruthless said, sitting down beside him again and throwing one end of the banner over Teddy's shoulders as well. "The Teddy Lupins of this world, really." She stuck her tongue out and grabbed his end of the banner to yank him closer and muss his hair. He lost his balance and flailed for a place to put his hands that wouldn't be, in her word, nonsense, and fell over against the ottoman, dragging her with him. She kissed him companionably, then slapped herself in the forehead and disentangled herself from the banner. "Sorry," she said. "I'm very bad at this not-kissing-Teddy business." She pulled herself up to sit on the ottoman. "It's not good when you break your _own_ rules."

Teddy expected to fight some urge to kiss her again-the thought of grabbing her ankle to sit up and then kissing her blue-jeaned knee was strangely attractive-but it was muted and distant, and he realized that even that would just be going through the motions right now. He sat up and nudged her knee fondly with his hand, then got to his feet. "I have some things to catch up on. Maybe I should go do them."

She nodded. "Yeah. Maybe. Sorry."

"I'll recover," Teddy promised.

He went up the boys' stairs without looking back, and went to his room. Checkmate glared at him, then went to hide under the bed.

He squared his shoulders, muttered, "No weaseling out," and opened his wardrobe door. The Maze was still sitting there, looking innocent, making no strange sounds and giving off no alien odors. When he picked it up, the wood felt normal, except for the place where a piece had been gouged out, and that just felt rough. Teddy grabbed the missing piece and took the whole thing to his excessively neat desk. He set it down between the mail and the clipped piles over papers ("Scrap?" was on top). Carefully, he set the large splinter into the place it had come from, then raised his wand at it and said, " _Reparo_."

He wasn't sure it would work-sometimes magical objects didn't take to magical repairs-but the splinter knit itself back into place as easily it would have on a chair or a desk or a picture frame. The Maze gleamed warmly in the afternoon light, put together again.

But of course, the external damage wasn't the only problem.

"Just don't touch anything," Teddy said. He fished around in his drawer for Ariadne's Thread, then raised his wand at the Maze and said, " _Sulci Numine._ "

The first thing he noticed upon entering was that the Maze was definitely not fixed.

Wind whipped violently through his hair, and tattered images flew through a dark and unpleasant fog. At first, he seemed to be standing on nothing, but the Maze made some kind of effort, and he found himself on the battered boards of the deck of Tirza's ship. No Guide appeared.

"Mum?" he called. "Dad? Sirius?" No answer. He cast around frantically. "Uncle Harry?"

No one.

A wave rose up, tipping the deck almost to vertical, and he grabbed at the rail, barely catching it before being thrown overboard into whatever was really here.

"Tirza?" he tried. "Miss LaFolle?"

He heard a tittering giggle as the ship came down again, throwing him to the deck. He caught a brief glimpse of Bellatrix-not the Bellatrix who'd killed his mother, but a younger, unblooded Bellatrix-running for the mast. She slipped into the fog and disappeared. Teddy decided not to call for her.

Slowly, he pushed himself up to his hands and knees and crawled for the prow, trying to see ahead into the storm. Other figures came and went too quickly to identify.

The ship was tossed to the right, and he lost his balance, rolling down the deck until he was stopped by the wheel. He used it to pull himself up, heedless of any change in course he might be making. His arm was sore from where it had hit the deck. The fog swirled in front of him, and there was Brimmann, his face running with sores, his mouth drawn back in a snarling smile. Teddy scrambled back and caught himself on the rail, looking seaward, into the impenetrable storm. He could see the side of the ship disappearing down into nothing, but as a wave hit it, the water splashed upward, and it wasn't water, but blood, red and stinking. Teddy jumped back with a wave of revulsion. In the distant mist he saw another shadow, a prowling beast on a distant shore.

"Greyback," he muttered to himself. "Wonderful. Stay in here, will you?" he called to shadow.

In the unseen sky above, thunder crashed, and the world of the Maze was lit with white lightning that reflected off the fog, so Teddy felt like he was standing in the center of the sun.

"What do I _do_?" he yelled.

The tittering laugh came again, but this time when Teddy looked, he didn't see Bellatrix, just a gathering green light, rushing through the white.

He grabbed Ariadne's thread and shouted, "Home!"

He was thrust out into his room, shivering... and soaking wet.

He looked at his drenched robes, and it was definitely blood on them. It was all over his hands, and, he was willing to guess, all over his face. Checkmate poked her nose out from under his bed, looked at him wide-eyed, and went back.

"Great," he muttered, starting to clean himself up with irritated jabs of his wand. "Just perfect. Good show, Lupin."

It took half an hour to get rid of enough gore to walk out of his room and go to the prefects' bathroom, and he spent longer than he strictly needed to in the hot, soapy water. He scrubbed himself thoroughly, not wanting a trace left. The robes, he thought he'd incinerate; Granny had got him enough robes to get through the year minus a pair. When he'd finished, he wrapped his hair in one towel and put another around his waist, and stepped out of the bathroom.

And into a shallow stream that was now running down the edge of the corridor. A flashing silver fish swam over his toes.

As he watched, the stream glimmered and then disappeared.

Teddy sat down on the floor, exhausted, his eyes closed.

"Oh, are you miserable?" someone asked.

He opened his eyes. Moaning Myrtle was floating gleefully a few feet above his head.

"Has something _terrible_ happened?"

Teddy shrugged and got up, careful to hold his towel shut. Myrtle was the only one of the ghosts who seemed to enjoy an occasional peek, and he didn't want to give her the satisfaction. "A flower and a stream," he said. "Yes. Terrible."

"And the children," Myrtle said. "Don't forget! It's not ghosts, you know."

"Yes. I'm sure they'd be terrifying, if they had the slightest notion that they were here." In truth, the children really did bother him less than they should have, he supposed-phantasms from the past that had never appeared before should have been a matter of grave concern. But that was just time. Time could sometimes slip, as he knew from having shared memories with his father. Time was the most fluid of the mysteries. The flower, the stream... those could be thought of as space. But the blood on his robes, blood that hadn't existed in any real time or space...

Well, there was certainly _one_ Mystery that was drenched in the blood of innocents, wasn't there?

And he couldn't afford to have that Mystery leak out. He couldn't go into the Maze until he knew why it had broken in this way, and how to fix it.

If he told Maddie, she was certain to take it away, and he was tired enough that this seemed like a great relief. She'd take it away, and tell him he didn't have the necessary talents to be an Unspeakable, and they'd take it back to the Department of Mysteries, where they'd no doubt cluck a bit about mishaps that trainees had with it, as they did a few simple repairs, which they all knew by heart...

He focused on the image of Unspeakables gathered around the Maze, fixing it with a light touch, and held onto it, trying not to imagine the follow-up conversation Maddie might have with Uncle Harry and Granny, telling them that Teddy had failed miserably and they really needed to keep him away from powerful magical objects. Maybe she would even be right. After all, he hadn't exactly done a stellar job of custodianship.

He went back to the room and wrote the letter, detailing everything that had happened (though he skirted around the rage that had caused him to "run into" Bellatrix). It was easier that way than calling her by Floo-he could arrange it and make it make sense, going back and correcting things. It took him until after midnight to finish, but when it was done, he thought it would suffice. It was after curfew, of course, so he couldn't send it.

He overslept the next morning, missed breakfast, and had to rush to his first class (Care of Magical Creatures, where Dapple was still having difficulty flying and Buckbeak was still having difficulty believing that this was his offspring), and by the time lunch came, he'd forgotten that he hadn't got around to sending it. He had a pleasant meal at the Ravenclaw table, trading stories with Donzo and Maurice (who'd come by from Slytherin), and didn't think of his letter to Maddie until Frankie wandered over and asked how he was feeling.

"I think I've got Sprout convinced to let us have the Halloween feast on All Saint's Day," he said. "That way, it'll be Friday, and we can have a nice late party. Thought the Muggles and Minions crew could put it together. McCormack can do a set or two-"

"Not unless you've got his concert fee stuffed in your book bag," Maurice interrupted.

"-or we'll just play some music on the Wireless. I think I'll let Weasley loose on decorations again." He shrugged. "Anyway, I wanted to see if you were feeling up to helping, after everything. Have you got it worked out, what happened?"

"No, but I wrote to your-" Teddy slapped his forehead. "I didn't _send_ it!"

But it was too late to send it during lunch. Afternoon brought Uncle Harry's last Defense Against the Dark Arts class for the year, and a test in Potions, and some heavy catch-up in Arithmancy, and when Teddy got back to his room, all he was thinking of was a weekend of homework ahead.

In fact, he didn't remember to send the owl until Monday morning, and that was only because he left it on top of his book bag Sunday night. The only school owl available was a small barn owl that didn't look like it would make very good time. It didn't matter. It was sent. The whole business would soon be out of Teddy's hands. He would have to think of a new career path, but he felt considerably better otherwise.

The phantasms continued to appear around Hogwarts over the next week, and people got used to them, as people tend to get used to anything that happens around them. For a few days, it even became a game, rather like collecting Chocolate Frog cards-"Who did you see? What showed up in _your_ House?" The redheaded boy who appeared in the Gryffindor Common Room and in the library was identified as Albus Dumbledore, by a very surprised Flitwick, and the stern-looking girl as Minerva McGonagall, when she'd been a first year student. In Hufflepuff, Cedric Diggory had been spotted studying in his favorite spot by the fire. None of the phantasms took the slightest note of their surroundings, and Teddy didn't think they realized that they'd been momentarily plucked forward in time. Several people had attempted to touch them now, and, though they were perfectly solid, they didn't even notice prodding and poking.

Maddie's return letter came on Thursday-Halloween proper-after supper, when Teddy, Victoire, Ruthless, Donzo, and Maurice had all gone to Hufflepuff to make the final plans for tomorrow's party. The barn owl dropped into Teddy's lap, exhausted, and held up its leg.

Teddy pulled off the note. _Teddy_ , it said, _I will be there on Saturday. I would come immediately, but the Department is short-staffed and I can't get the time. I am very concerned about this, and I beg you not to use the Maze again, but Croaker doesn't think there's any immediate danger from the phenomena you describe (I didn't share your experiences_ in _the Maze, just the ones outside of it). Be careful. I'll have a look, and everything will be fine. Accidents happen. Don't blame yourself. Love, Maddie_

He looked up to tell Frankie that his mother was coming on Saturday, but the words stopped in his throat. Just beyond the table where Frankie and Ruthless were arguing (again) about whether or not costumes should be a part of the festivities, a beautiful girl with high cheekbones and gray eyes was sitting on the back of a sofa, tying the orange laces on her lime green trainers. As Teddy watched, her black hair turned a very horrible shade of purple and rose into a fan. She looked up and smiled at someone who'd once been where Teddy was now.

Teddy smiled back and waved.

She bent over to tie the lace on her other trainer, and disappeared.

Teddy sat up in the Gryffindor Common Room that night, hoping that he might see Dad or Sirius, or maybe James. It was the anniversary of the day James had died. But while a few phantasms appeared-including one man who Teddy thought was Godric Gryffindor; he had the sword on his belt, anyway-none of the Marauders seemed to be picked up.

Uncle Harry would no doubt pontificate on how this was better, and how it was very close to Dark magic to worry about such things, and it would drive someone crazy, and he knew best, because he was Harry Potter.

Teddy duly noted the imaginary lecture, but was disappointed anyway. Seeing Mum for one unguarded moment had been grand. He could never be sure of his dreams, but the girl with the horrible hairstyle and clashing trainers... that had been Nymphadora Lupin-well, Tonks at the time-with no masks on, and no agenda.

Sometime after midnight, Teddy finally gave up and went back to his room, where he found Checkmate batting at an oblivious boy in Victorian robes. He disappeared when Teddy lit the torches to get ready for bed. As he was the only Gryffindor in his year, the furniture in the dormitory was in a different arrangement than it had ever been, and he wondered what would happen if some boy in the past-or future, he supposed-was plucked from his bed and ended up sitting in the middle of Teddy's own desk. Would he notice being cut in half by a large slab of wood?

And would it kill him? If so, what sorts of trouble would _that_ cause?

These thoughts tried to keep Teddy awake, but he was tired to the center of his bones, and he drifted off uneasily, dreaming scattered dreams about accidentally changing history. He also dreamed that Fifi LaFolle was alive, but missing, and he had to team up with Uncle Harry and Kingsley Shacklebolt to find her, since she was guarding one of James's treasures and they were the only ones who could track her. The pair of them were having a passionate argument about the American sport of Quodpot, and Aunt Ginny appeared to send them off to different corners of the magic carpet until they could cool off.

As sleep started to steal away, but before wakefulness took him, Teddy actually tried to interpret it, believing in a dreamy way that he was doing an assignment for Trelawney. He'd got as far as deciding that Quodpot referred to a low-grade international skirmish he'd heard about from Ellsworth-a nonsensical bit of business between wizarding communities in Quebec and Maine-and Aunt Ginny represented the interests of the Ministry and the crown, before he woke up in the dawn-gray dormitory and realized that he had no assignment from Trelawney, and international skirmishes were not generally resolved by dreams about magic carpets (unless Maddie had skipped something in her description of the duties of the Department of Mysteries).

He pulled himself out of bed and finished the homework he'd skipped yesterday to work on Frankie's party, and by the time he was finished, he could hear the rest of Gryffindor up and moving around. He cleaned up and got dressed for the day, then made himself eat breakfast (his appetite still wasn't precisely what he was used to) and headed for Transfiguration with Connie Deverill and Donzo. When they got in, Teddy almost didn't realize that he wasn't looking at a phantasm-if a child McGonagall could appear in the Common Room, where she'd only spent a handful of years, it seemed quite normal to think that an adult McGonagall would appear in the classroom where she'd spent decades, standing by the blackboard in heavily brocaded robes. It wasn't until she called, "Good morning, Mr. Lupin," that he realized she was actually present, and so was the canvas standing a few feet from her, and the tall, thin black man who was peering at it intently, at least until he heard Teddy's name.

Dean Thomas turned with a start and looked at Teddy, then composed himself and smiled politely. Teddy returned it, but went to McGonagall.

"What, er...?" He looked around. Beside Dean was a stand that held a clean palette and several tubes of oil paint (though he was working with charcoal on the canvas at the moment), and a dish of some substance that glowed a peculiarly practical shade of khaki. "Well, obviously, you're having your portrait done. Are you ill?"

"No. Just getting old enough that Headmistress Sprout considered it appropriate to see to it that I had a portrait ready to take up residence. I don't intend it to be active for some time." She started to lean forward, but Dean stopped her with a tentative, "Er, Professor?" She nodded curtly. "It's foolishness, of course. But she's oddly convinced that my august personage would be a beneficial addition to the walls. She wanted to put it in the Headmaster's Office, but I drew the line. I was never more than Dumbledore's deputy." Teddy raised his eyebrows; as far as he knew, McGonagall had been Headmistress for several years after the war. But he let it go. Everyone, he supposed, had some quirks. She shifted her eyes. "Mr. Thomas, have you got the preliminary work done? I believe Professor Gardner's class is ready to start."

Dean started to gather his things. "I have the basic layout. But I'd like to come back this afternoon to get the proper lighting. The last Transfiguration class ends at two-thirty... er, I suppose you remember that. If you'd like to add any more thoughts... well, the more, the better." He looked at the glowing bowl, then nodded to Teddy and said, "Er... good morning, then, Teddy." He left before Teddy thought to return the greeting.

McGonagall rolled her shoulders to stretch, then pointed her wand at her robes and said, " _Finite Incantatem._ " The heavy velvet robes with jeweled inlays became practical, every day work robes. "Mr. Thomas and I will be here for the weekend," she said. "Perhaps you'd care to join us for tea tomorrow?"

This was clearly enough an order that Teddy didn't even pretend to check his schedule.

The morning's classes went slowly. Students Teddy would have never imagined coming to a social event arranged by Frankie Apcarne were actually talking about the Halloween party, largely because the feast had been muted last night in anticipation. Ruthless and Frankie finally reached an agreement on costumes-anyone who wanted to could wear one. This was announced with some aplomb at lunch. Marie Weasley seemed delighted with the notion, but Teddy heard a few other girls grumbling about not having time to put anything together.

After classes in the afternoon, Teddy joined his friends in the Great Hall to get it ready. The house elves, disturbed by the change in days and routines, were scurrying around with little attempt at hiding, and Winky looked like she might faint from the impropriety of having a masked ball (as she insisted on calling it) on All Saints Day. Victoire had assembled her usual team of boys from Gryffindor, and Story had generously lent her his Ravenclaw army, to put up decorations that George Weasley had donated for the occasion. Stationary fireworks shaped like bats and demons danced around the walls, throwing strange shadows against the stones. Franklin Driscoll appeared, looking sheepish, with a bag of Muggle Halloween decorations, including what appeared to be a green-skinned hag in witch's robes. "It's what they think witches look like," he muttered, shrugging, then produced a piece of white cloth draped over a ball, with crude eyes drawn on it. "And this is a ghost."

These, along with other decorations, provided great amusement to the wizard-born (except for Honoria, who looked vexed by the hag), and Victoire commanded a small Muggle corner to be constructed near the study behind the high table. At some point, Donzo got out his guitar and started his Muggles and Minions based repertoire, adding some questionable lyrics here and there. A few phantasms appeared, but of course took no notice. Corky made a great show of pretending to dance with a pretty girl who appeared to be visiting from the time of Queen Elizabeth. By the time the party was due to begin, everyone was in a fine mood. Teddy felt guilty about this-there were still some major problems, and they were still his fault-but he told himself that nothing new had appeared, and the phantasms were harmless, and Maddie would be here in the morning.

Donzo brought his charmed amplifiers down, but after another argument with Maurice about doing free concerts, just hooked them up to a radio. Frankie Charmed it to play a lot of popular songs, and the rest of the guests came in. In all, Teddy guessed that there were forty students there-not exactly a smashing turnout, but nothing to sneeze at. The elves served dinner on long buffet tables (Winky was even more horrified by this than by the date), and couples moved around the floor in wild dances. Teddy chanced a dance with Ruthless and escaped unscathed, then found himself shared between the Weasley girls until Jane grabbed him.

About half of the guests had worn costumes, though few were actually masked. One of these few was Marie, who'd decided to dress as a Veela in bird form. This was interpreted with a feathered cape, a feathered headdress, and a feathered mask. While Teddy danced with her, she made a lot of very silly bird noises, but he noticed that she didn't seem to be doing that with anyone else. Victoire just watched her indulgently. Teddy, who'd lost Jane somewhere in the crowd, went over to her.

"Looks great in here," he said.

"Thank you." She pulled herself up onto a table to sit down. "This was a good idea. Do you think the headmistress will let us have Bonfire Night as well?"

"Probably not in the Great Hall."

"True." She looked around. "The teachers are finally coming. I invited Neville-Professor... oh, you know. And the Morses got in a few minutes ago." She pointed to a tall man in a ragged pirate costume striding across the dance floor, weaving among the couples. "I don't know him. Does he teach something obscure?"

Teddy peered through the crowd to get a better look. It was hard to see in the light of fireworks. The set of the man's shoulders looked familiar. He'd stopped at the buffet table, where he was standing close to Marie. It could have been-

Teddy's heart froze. He ran across the room, knocking couples out of the way, much to their consternation. He was going full tilt by the time he got there, and almost ran into the phantasm.

It didn't notice, but it was turning anyway.

It was Brimmann, his face running with sores. The stick of the sickness baked off of him.

"No," Teddy whispered.

The image disappeared.

No harm done. Teddy swallowed hard and turned to tell Marie that he was sorry if he scared her, but she wasn't where he thought she'd be.

She was leaning against the table, swooning, as if overcome by the heat, and as he watched, she slipped to the floor.

"Marie!" he yelled.

The music stopped.

Daniel got to her first and signaled for everyone to stay back. Victoire had to be restrained by Hannah Longbottom.

"Cho?"

She nodded, and Teddy felt a Cooling Charm envelope the area.

Carefully, Daniel pulled off the headdress. Marie's hair was lank and damp beneath it, and creeping out from under the mask was a thin trickle of blood.

Daniel moved the mask.

High on one otherwise clear cheek, a blister filled with noxious blood was forming right over one that had already burst.

Someone screamed.

There was a crash as the front door opened, and thundering footsteps that could only be Hagrid's.

"Wha's goin' on? Gates just locked!" He looked around, but didn't seem to see Marie. "An' there's creepers goin' up 'em, just winding right through and up the walls."

Professor Longbottom, who'd been headed for another student who was holding up bloody fingertips, stopped. "What?"

Daniel looked up from Marie, eyes wide. "We'll need Poppy Pomfrey. But I think it's Galdreward's Quarantine. That means no one and nothing enters or leaves the grounds until this is cleared up."


	15. Blistering Bloodspots

**Chapter 15:**

 **Blistering Bloodspots**

The world seemed to come and go in great, slow pulses of light, color, and noise, followed by distant and incomprehensible mutterings. Teddy felt like he was swimming in the lake, and it turned choppy and kept dragging him under, then tossing him up into a cold wind.

In one of the moments of hyper-clarity, Daniel Morse caught him and sat him down, and asked if he felt all right. He had a seventh year girl shine bright wandlight into Teddy's eyes, then Teddy went under, and when he came back up, Daniel was looking at another student and Cho was dabbing at blood with a magically Levitated handkerchief. Madam Pomfrey arrived. She and Daniel separated out seven terrified students. Daniel raised an eyebrow and said "Cho?" and they were all quite suddenly quiet.

"MARIE!"

Victoire's cry broke through the chill in Teddy's brain, and somehow, he was moving, running over the stones, grabbing her by the waist and pulling her back. She fought against him, and he had to strain to keep hold.

"Let me go, Teddy, my sister's sick!"

Teddy looked at Daniel, who shook his head. He continued fighting to hold onto Victoire. A moment later, he felt a warm hand on his wrist. Ruthless stepped in front of Victoire, blocking her view of Marie, then gently pushed her back. She seemed to have both of her brothers in tow.

"They've got a handle on it, Weasley," she said. "Come on. You're no use to anyone standing about and screaming."

Miraculously, this worked. Victoire stopped struggling. To Teddy's immense surprise, she leaned forward and threw her arms around Ruthless, who took charge of her. The two girls walked away together, and Teddy saw them disappear into a shadow. Ruthless's brothers followed awkwardly.

Teddy looked at the quiet, still figures. They were now floating above the floor while Madam Pomfrey checked them for transport. Marie was furthest to the right. Beside her was a first year boy that Teddy didn't know, and beyond him was a girl who played on the Ravenclaw Quidditch team with Connie Deverill. In the middle was a small, compact figure...

The ice cloud tried to cover Teddy's brain again. It was Maurice Burke.

With a last-ditch effort, Teddy dug the short fingernails of his right hand into the flesh of his left forearm and pinched. There was a burst of pain, then the chattering of the hall came into focus. Frankie was gathering up the uninfected students by House and efficiently putting their Housemates in charge of keeping them under control. Ruthless had got Victoire calmed down and left her with Kirk and Keith, and had now moved on to trying to pry a fourth year Gryffindor boy away from his Hufflepuff girlfriend, who was floating beside Maurice on the floor. Donzo kept throwing worried glances at the ill, but was keeping track of the Ravenclaws, some of whom were trying to get a closer look at the symptoms. Corky had corralled Slytherin into the corner decorated with Franklin Driscoll's Muggle Halloween decorations, and Honoria was making a great fuss of getting all the details of what each of them had seen. Roger Young was keeping an eye on the Hufflepuffs, which Teddy wouldn't have expected, as Frankie's girlfriend, Tinny Gudgeon, would generally be-

His eye fell on the far end of the line of the ill, and he recognized Tinny's short, dull black hair. Frankie's circuits of the room kept drawing him closer, and as Teddy watched, Madam Pomfrey shooed him away gently.

Teddy went to him. "Frankie-"

He turned. His pale blue eyes were wide and frightened behind his glasses. "Teddy, get over with the other Gryffindors. As soon as Madam Pomfrey says it's all right, we should all go back to our Houses."

"I'm sorry, Frankie."

"It's not your fault."

Teddy shook his head. "Yes. It is."

Frankie looked at him blankly, then his eyes cleared. "If anything else happens to them, I'm burning down the bloody Department of Mysteries."

"No, it was _me_."

Frankie ran a hand through his greasy hair. "Teddy, I don't care _what_ you did with whatever Mum gave you. You're fifteen. You're still a kid. I screwed up with their business, too, in case you forgot. And so has Mum."

Teddy was about to point out that Frankie and Maddie had both "screwed up" by trying to help someone else, while he himself had managed to rip a hole in something vital by trying to _kill_ someone, but a deep, quiet voice inside of him-a relief after the fevered trips his mind had been taking of late-told him that Frankie didn't need to deal with someone else's guilty feelings just now. Instead, Teddy just put a hand on Frankie's shoulder and gave it a squeeze. Frankie nodded to him in acknowledgment and walked away.

"Mr. Lupin!" Madam Pomfrey said, sounding exasperated as she approached them. "You've been cleared. Go back with the others."

Teddy took a deep breath, looked at her, and said, "But I know what's happening."

"Yes, we all saw the phantasm, Mr. Lupin."

"It was pirate called Brimmann. I know where he came from. And it's Blistering Bloodspots. It's curse-borne."

Madam Pomfrey lost the distracted look in her eyes. She stopped. "You have my attention, Teddy." She looked around. "Though we unfortunately seem to have other attention. Can you morph your face to make one of the sores show up?"

Teddy wasn't entirely certain why she wanted him to do such a thing, but he concentrated as well as he could. Morphing had never been harder than it had been this year. He thought of Mum's easy hair-color switch in the Hufflepuff Common Room, steeled himself, and felt the pinching sensation that always came just before a deliberate morph (accidental morphs, he rarely noticed until someone pointed them out).

Madam Pomfrey leaned in and examined his cheek, where the entirely unreal bloodspot had appeared. "Dr. Morse!" she called. "We need to have another look at Teddy Lupin. We'll bring him down with the others."

Daniel frowned, and Teddy saw Professor Morse start to raise her wand, but-at a tiny signal from Madam Pomfrey that he wouldn't have noticed if he weren't standing right beside her-lower it again.

The adults bustled for the next few minutes, getting the sick ready for transport. Teddy was instructed to "sit down and rest; you don't look too weak just now." When everything was ready, Teddy followed the still forms as they floated out. Daniel's hand was on his shoulder as they walked. When they got to the hospital wing, pretenses were dropped. The unconscious students were sent to beds. Madam Pomfrey pulled Teddy into the small cubicle where she kept her paperwork. She Conjured chairs.

"Daniel! Cho! Are you finished?"

Daniel and Professor Morse came in. She was putting her wand away.

"What exactly is their status?" Madam Pomfrey asked.

"They're in stasis," Daniel said. "We've done it before with rapidly spreading plagues-"

"-which I trust stays in this room," Professor Morse added, "as it wasn't entirely in keeping with certain statutes."

Madam Pomfrey waved her hand, unconcerned with such niceties. "Then it won't spread."

"I can't guarantee that," Daniel told her. "This keeps it stable within the patient, so it doesn't get any further than it has. It's Cho's spell. We tried it for an Ebola outbreak, to hold the patients until medicine could get through a war zone. Of course, if this is Galdreward's Quarantine, nothing is going to get in or out. Do we know how to treat this?"

Madam Pomfrey looked at Teddy. "Mr. Lupin claims to know what it is. Teddy?"

Teddy swallowed hard and looked at his feet as he told the story of his search for Brimmann in the Maze, and the accident that had landed him here last week-even his attempt to kill Bellatrix again-and his beliefs about the leaks in Time and Space... and possibly Death.

"I never meant for this to happen," he said. "I swear, I didn't."

"Of course not," Madam Pomfrey said. "But it's happened. The good news is that we've learned to control Blistering Bloodspots since Brimmann's time. The bad news is that we've controlled it so well that we don't routinely stock the potions ingredients we need."

"How does it spread?" Daniel asked.

"It's curse-borne. The mechanism is looking someone in the eyes."

"He looked _me_ in the eyes," Teddy said.

Madam Pomfrey shook her head. "Teddy, there are things we don't understand about Metamorphmagi. Even your grandmother doesn't, and she's studied the subject more than anyone else in the world. For one reason or another-I suspect it's your body remembering its true shapes-Metamorphmagi tend to be very resistant to illness, or any injury that doesn't happen very quickly. And even the quick ones heal more rapidly than most if they aren't-" She broke off, pale, and Teddy supposed she was thinking of Mum, her spinal cord nearly severed at the base of the neck by one quick blow. "I wouldn't put it to a test," she finished, "but I don't think you're especially susceptible."

"But it's my _fault_ ," Teddy said. "I ought to be sick, not them."

"But you're not," Daniel told him, then looked at Madam Pomfrey. "From my reading, I'd guess I'm immune. Most curse-borne illnesses-lycanthropy being a notable exception-don't transfer to Muggles, since we don't have the magic for them to act on. Can we find or grow what we need to make the potions they'll need, or do we have to find a way to break the Quarantine? _Is_ it Galdreward's?"

Madam Pomfrey nodded. "Oh, yes. And as long as the sickness holds within the limits of the Quarantine, we won't be able to get out, and no one will be able to send anything in. The only way to break the Quarantine is to cure the illness."

"Can we communicate?" Professor Morse asked.

"It'll have sealed up the Floos," Madam Pomfrey said. "And the owls are trapped where they are. I tried to send a Patronus, but it shattered on the Quarantine line."

Teddy frowned. "Why would it stop a Patronus?"

"Because Galdreward's Quarantine isn't built for a specific illness. Some curse-borne diseases can be carried on spells."

"Lovely," Professor Morse said.

"The portraits should be able to come and go," Madam Pomfrey said. "I'll ask the Headmistress to send Dilys to St. Mungo's to get any advice she can, and we'll be able to contact the Ministry, and perhaps Harry Potter through Nigellus's portrait if it seems necessary, but for now, we need to accept that we're isolated here. We'll have to make do with what we have."

The adults began to discuss what to do next, and Teddy drew back into the shadows, sitting miserably on Madam Pomfrey's uncomfortable wooden stool, looking out at the still figures of his classmates.

He helped Professor Morse and Madam Pomfrey brew some potions meant to ease fevers and aches, and to keep the patients in stasis healthy and nourished. They couldn't very well be brought out of stasis to drink, but Daniel suggested delivering the potions "IM," and Madam Pomfrey-after a brief conversation that Teddy didn't really understand-said that there was no reason it oughtn't work, though she'd never tried it before. "Ted Tonks always thought it could be done," she said, nodding at Teddy. "When he was an apprentice, he and Augustus Pye spent a lot of time doing experiments using magical materials and Muggle methods. No one was ever hurt by it."

A few minutes later, Professor Morse Summoned Daniel's medical bag, and he pulled out a flat black box full of needles with plastic tubes, and they filled each plastic tube with potion. Daniel went around to each patient and jabbed a needle into his or her arm and pushed the potion in. Teddy was quite sure that, if they weren't in stasis, it would have hurt quite a lot.

When it was done, Madam Pomfrey said that they'd done all they could, and the patients needed rest. "So do you, Teddy. And don't lie awake worrying about it being your fault. It was an accident. I need to report to the Headmistress."

Teddy didn't answer. Madam Pomfrey straightened her mobcap and headed off.

Daniel kissed Professor Morse's cheek and said, "I'll walk Teddy up to Gryffindor, if you don't mind," he said. "Then I'll be along."

"Fine with me," she said. "I'll fill Neville and Hannah in on the situation. And I'll bet you large amounts of gold that McGonagall will be there with them, waiting."

"I wouldn't take that bet, even if I _had_ the gold." They watched Professor Morse leave, then Daniel turned to Teddy, looking at him shrewdly. "You heard what Madam Pomfrey said about it being an accident, didn't you?"

Teddy shrugged.

Daniel shook his head and gathered his things, and they started to walk up toward Gryffindor. When they got into the corridor, he said, "Why are you determined that it wasn't?"

"I told you," Teddy said. "I tried to kill Bellatrix, and that's why all of this happened."

"Bellatrix Lestrange is dead and buried. Or cremated. Or, if the world is just, devoured by ravenous doxies."

"She's just buried," Teddy said. "They all are. The Death Eaters, I mean. Uncle Harry saw to it. They're off in some back corner of a graveyard. I don't know where. Voldemort, too. I think it's a Muggle graveyard, with Voldemort's father. I think Uncle Harry made it Unplottable, so people wouldn't go and do things to their graves."

"Considerate of him."

"I just don't think he wants to waste anyone's time chasing off criminals who write nasty things on Voldemort's grave, but it's against the law, so he'd have to if people knew where it was."

"Mm." They started up the stairs. Daniel shifted his bag to his other hand. "The point, Teddy, is that you can't kill a woman who's already dead."

"But she was alive in the Maze."

"And in the Maze, you were in the middle of the same battle she died in, and in the Maze, your mother was still alive, and might have saved your father, and had you seen that milieu in the real world-had _anyone_ seen it-the response would have been the same as yours. It's natural to try to protect helpless people, especially when you love them."

"But it's the past, and it wasn't real, and-"

"And it was something you saw with your own eyes." Daniel stopped at the first landing and set down his bag. "Listen, Teddy, I know that after what happened, you feel guilty. I know that you were acting out of anger, and I know you were told not to touch things in the Maze. I understand all of that. But the Maze shows you things _as real_. Your mind interprets them as real, at least down in the part of it that's not much different from a lizard brain."

"What-?"

"Let me ask you something: If someone _had_ been there that night, if someone had spotted Bellatrix before she could sneak up on your mother, would it have been wrong for that person to do something about it?"

"But they wouldn't know that Mum and Dad really died."

"When you see a psychopath with a large knife coming at someone who's trying to treat a dying man, it's a good bet. Answer the question."

"Uncle Harry says I'm supposed to accept it."

"Please, Teddy. If Harry were the person in question, we wouldn't be having this conversation, because he'd have taken Bellatrix out of the picture and your parents would be dealing with your teenage mood swings." He shook his head and sat down on the stairs, signaling Teddy to sit down beside him. "Harry's right that you have to learn to accept what you can't change. He's got it all tied in with death, but there are other things you can't change, either, and you may as well learn to accept those, too. But from what you described, the Maze took you to a place that was like a dream, where those things hadn't happened yet. What kind of person would you be if you saw even two strangers, let alone your parents, in danger, and did nothing to avert it?"

"But it wasn't _real_."

"So you're blaming yourself as if you _really_ tried to kill someone, on the basis that you should have known better, since it wasn't real."

"But people are really sick."

"Did you know that if you touched something in the Maze, it would break open and spill things out into the real world?"

"No. But I did get burned when I tried to touch Mum, and Maddie told me I shouldn't do it."

"Yes, burning your fingers should have told you that the thing could loose a plague on us. How could you miss that logical leap?" Daniel smiled. "We'll figure this out, Teddy. This isn't a punishment for you because you made a very understandable mistake. It's just an accident." He picked up his bag again and shifted it, then grinned at Teddy. "I, er, don't suppose you'd be kind enough to make this feather light for me. I'm afraid I've got used to traveling with a witch."

Teddy rolled his eyes and did the Charm. They walked up to the Fat Lady's portrait together, but she was out of the frame. Teddy knocked on the wall beside it. A little shepherd girl from down the corridor poked her head shyly in. "Shall I find her?" she asked.

"Please," Teddy said.

The girl ran off.

Daniel shook his head. "Why don't you get that portrait of your dad to move about like this, and talk? The one your granny has in the parlor? It'd be something. And he's in his classroom. He'd like that."

"They have to do something before they die. I think it's something like getting memories for a Pensieve, and then it's mixed into the paint somehow. McGonagall is doing that now." Teddy slapped his forehead. "She's stuck here! She and Dean!"

"Well, we'll find a place for them until it goes through," Daniel said calmly.

The Fat Lady sidled back into her portrait, looking guilty. "It's well past curfew, Mr. Lupin," she said curtly, "and I was told you'd been taken to the hospital wing."

"False alarm," Daniel said. "It was just spots."

"Oh. Well, then. Password?"

Teddy gave it to her, and bade Daniel good night before going inside. Ruthless and her brothers were all sleeping on the floor in the Common Room, by the fire. Teddy touched her head and woke her long enough to tell her he was fine. She fumbled for her wand and Conjured another sleeping bag, but he shook his head and went upstairs to his room. He didn't bother switching into his pajamas; he just curled up on his bed, Checkmate on the pillow by his head, and went to sleep. He dreamed uneasily of Fenrir Greyback and Bellatrix dancing in the Great Hall. In his dream, he asked Greyback why Dolohov wasn't there instead. It had been Dolohov who'd killed Dad. Greyback just laughed. Bellatrix, who appeared to enjoy the company, said, "Antonin doesn't matter in our context, does he?" In the space of the dream, Teddy made a conscious choice to turn his back on them. He left the Great Hall and joined Sirius in the antechamber, where they were trying to dig up a treasure (possibly a Healing Hydrangea) buried in the foundation, and he enjoyed this nonsensical quest until he woke up.

The school seemed muted over the weekend. People worked on their assignments, and Slytherin held a Quidditch practice, but everyone was aware of the sickness in the hospital wing, and of the high, dark vines that had sealed off the gate. A few owls flew recklessly at the barrier, but none made it through. Madam Pomfrey and Daniel posted warnings about eye contact with any of the phantasms, and redoubled advice not to touch them. The Headmistress announced on Saturday night that the portraits had been successful in passing messages to St. Mungo's and the Ministry, and that parents had been informed of the situation during the day. Emergency messages could be transmitted through Ministry offices, but the system couldn't be used for general pleasantries.

"What if something happens at night when the Ministry is closed?" a Ravenclaw girl asked.

"I assure you," Sprout said, "we will be able to get messages to the Ministry." She didn't mention that Uncle Harry had a Headmaster's portrait in his home, probably not wanting to have students attempt to use Phineas Nigellus's portrait. It could be a bit sharp-tongued. She waited for the nervous chatter to die down, then said, "As you know, the Quarantine occurred quite suddenly, and on a Friday night. We're lucky that most of our staff was here, but I'm afraid that a few of your teachers were in Hogsmeade. I'll be taking on Professor Vector's Arithmancy classes, and Professor Firenze is willing to take on all of Professor Trelawney's Divination workload. Professor Gardner was also shut out, but quite fortunately, his predecessor, Professor McGonagall, was visiting. She believes she remembers the curriculum well enough to cover it." Gryffindor House erupted in a muffled sort of cheer. Professor Sprout raised her hand, quite unnecessarily, to stop it. "Mr. Dean Thomas is also here for the duration. He makes his living as a portrait artist, and has generously offered to teach art to those students who are interested, at least until the crisis has passed. I shall post a sign-up here tomorrow."

Normally, this sort of announcement would have been met with eager murmurings, but as it was, Teddy only noticed a few students writing it down in their notebooks.

"I know that you're concerned about your classmates," Sprout went on, "and I know that it's disturbing to be walled in. But I urge you to continue with your normal activities as much as you can. Quidditch will continue. The Gryffindor-Slytherin match scheduled for next weekend will take place as planned. Classes will not be disrupted. Miss Higgs assures me that the _Charmer_ will continue to publish, though its adviser isn't able to come back through the barrier. Hogwarts, in other words, will function as normally as it can under the circumstances."

With this, she took her seat, and supper appeared on the tables.

Not many people seemed to have a hearty appetite.

There was no conversation to be had with people in stasis, but Teddy went down to the hospital wing after dinner every day anyway, partly to help Madam Pomfrey brew potions, mainly to make sure they never got far from his mind. Daniel didn't like it, but Madam Pomfrey just insisted that he never look into any of the patients' eyes, which wasn't difficult, as their eyes were closed.

By Wednesday, Victoire was coming with him (he hadn't quite got around to telling her just _how_ her sister had ended up here), and by the end of the first week of the Quarantine, Donzo and Corky were coming as well. Donzo brought his guitar and sat on the windowsill between Maurice's bed and Marie's, and played cheerful tunes.

"If Maurice were awake," Corky said on Saturday night, "he'd be telling you to knock it off, or at least make Madam Pomfrey cough up a few Galleons."

"I don't think so," Donzo said, picking his way through a country song (every time Teddy thought he'd hit the end of Donzo's musical tolerance, he managed to try something stranger than before). "Though I'd guess he'd make sure Higgs was here covering my charitable impulses for the _Charmer._ "

"I'll call her," Corky offered, raising his wand.

"I'll leave," Donzo said. He twisted the end of the melody and segued into something that sounded classical to Teddy's ear.

Victoire finished whispering to Marie, squeezed her hand, and turned around. "I bet they like hearing you play."

Donzo shrugged. He played for another ten minutes, then Madam Pomfrey sent everyone back to their Houses.

The next day, Teddy followed the boundary of the Quarantine around the outer wall of Hogwarts, at least until he got to the Forbidden Forest, where the school boundaries became tricky because of the magical nature of the woods. He started in anyway-Madam Pomfrey thought she might be able to brew the needles of a Perambulating Pine as a substitution for a Creeping Spruce in the Bloodspots potion-but a centaur appeared from the shadows and warned him off without saying a word. He went back to the greenhouses instead, and helped Professor Longbottom and Hannah go through an inventory of seeds for anything that might be useful. They'd examined the Fireflower in the hope that it would have curative properties, but nothing had come of it.

"We're fine with Wolfsbane, thank God," Professor Longbottom said. "I'll bring some up to the castle tomorrow so you can start Neil's potion. Everything else is standard."

On Monday, Teddy went to his first art lesson. He'd never been able to draw a stick figure without coaching, and nothing in the first lesson seemed likely to change that, but the sudden quarantine had made tea with Professor McGonagall and Dean Thomas seem off kilter, and she'd hinted strongly in Transfiguration that Teddy ought to make an effort to get to know Dean. Teddy found himself spending most of the lesson trying to figure out why Dean was so special that Dad (and, indirectly, Mum) had died to save him. He seemed nice enough, and was a patient teacher, but Teddy was left with the same feeling he'd always had-a guilty knowledge that, if he were faced with the choice, he'd save Dad instead of Dean, and then Dad would yell at him about making such a selfish choice, and they would all be miserable. For his part, Dean tried a few times to make eye contact with Teddy, but always looked away quickly. "Please come again," he muttered softly at the end of it.

Teddy went back to his room and made a mess of trying to draw Checkmate. When he decided it was hopeless, he did his homework and went to bed. For once, his sleep was dreamless and restful, so naturally, it was interrupted.

He was aware first of Checkmate's claws digging into his chest as she leapt, and when he fluttered his eyes, the room was full of light. At first, he thought the Maze was doing something new, possibly getting ready to explode, but then he realized that the light was swirling at the ceiling.

He rubbed his eyes and sat up as the Patronus dropped and formed itself into a huge bear. It looked like it ought to growl and snarl, but instead, its jaw dropped open and Corky's voice came though, sounding curt, but not at all threatening:

"Lupin, you'd best get down to Slytherin right now. You're needed. I'll explain when you get here. I'll be waiting outside." The bear broke into swirls of light, then disappeared.

Teddy blinked himself fully awake and looked at his clock. It was three-thirty in the morning.

He rummaged for a dressing gown and dug the Marauder's Map out of his book bag. Professor Longbottom was patrolling near the Great Hall, but he was alone and Teddy thought he could be avoided. Everyone else was sleeping, or at least still, until he got to Slytherin House, where Corky was pacing outside the entrance, and Neil Overby and Honoria Higgs were moving about in the Common Room.

Teddy rubbed his face vigorously, lit his wand, and went out as carefully as he could. He had to wait a few minutes for Professor Longbottom to head down a corridor before he could make a run for the stairs that led to Slytherin, but otherwise, he was undisturbed.

Corky was still in his daytime clothes-blue jeans and a hooded sweatshirt with the name of Muggle school his sister attended on it, with half-untied trainers flopping on his feet-and looked like he'd been grabbing at handfuls of his hair for a while. When Teddy got there, he sighed. "Oh, good. You might have sent your Patronus back, you know; I wasn't even sure you'd come."

"Sorry. I'm still asleep. What's going on?"

Corky shook his head and turned to the blank wall that concealed the entrance to the Slytherin Common Room and said, "We solve our own problems." As the door opened, he glanced over his shoulder and said, "I changed it. Thought Maurice would like it."

Teddy nodded, thinking that he hadn't done anything in a prefect's capacity to make people think about the sick Gryffindors, and he really ought to, but he couldn't think of what Marie might like. He'd have to ask Victoire. He cleared this from his head and followed Corky into the green-tinged underworld of the Slytherin Common Room. "What's going on?"

"Teddy!" Before Corky could even offer an explanation, Neil Overby was running across the room, eyes wide enough for the whites to show all the way around the irises. "Teddy, the full moon is next week!"

"What?"

"Next _week_ , Teddy. The moon!"

Teddy pinched his own cheek to stay awake. "I talked to Professor Longbottom. He says there's enough"-he yawned-"wolfsbane for the potion all year and-"

"But where am I meant to transform?" Neil started pacing the room in great strides, going back and forth between Teddy and Corky, who were near the door, and Honoria, who was at the fireplace. "I can't be in my room, even with Wolfsbane, that's not enough when there are other boys right there. And I can't go to the Forest. Vivian said that there are things there that are bigger than I am. And I can't just wander about the grounds, and-"

Teddy caught him on one of his circuits and led him to a sofa, then sat down on an ottoman across from him. Corky sank gratefully into a chair, and Honoria edged closer. Teddy looked at her crossly. "This isn't an interview."

She drew her eyebrows together. "I'm _worried_ about him," she said. "I've been up with him all night. Corky and I."

Neil was looking at her with complete trust. Teddy didn't share it, but supposed his own mistakes this year would make a leak to the _Charmer_ quite a tame problem. He turned back to Neil. "Listen, I know you always go back to the pack to transform, and that's good, but the Wolfsbane Potion really ought to keep you from doing anything drastic. My dad used to lock himself in his office. I don't think he even howled, or everyone would have known."

"It's easy to remember not to howl," Neil said. "But I don't have an office."

"I'm sure one of the teachers would let you-"

Neil leaned forward. "I can't! I dig sometimes, and I-" His voice dropped to a whisper. "I _mark_ things."

"Even on the Wolfsbane?"

Neil nodded miserably. "With the Wolfsbane, you know you shouldn't, but you just want to... I don't know. It's like you want to make sure no one else is wandering around in your territory without knowing it's yours. And, you know, you have to go anyway, and it's not like you can just head off to the nearest boys' toilet."

"But Dad..."

"Could clean up his own space before anyone else saw it," Honoria said coolly. "Really, Lupin. I don't think Neil wants someone else to have to do that."

Teddy thought about all the memories Dad had given him on the ring, then tried to imagine the man whose head he'd been in having to cleanse his office rug after "marking" it. An image came into his mind, unbidden, of Dad pulling all of the curtains and crawling around his office, weak from the transformation, trying to clean up all of the evidence before anyone came to check on him. All of his education, all of his manners, all of his compassion... none of it would matter. None of it _had_ mattered, not on those mornings with his nose to the carpet. Teddy tried to tell himself that it was just Honoria's unfounded assumption, compounded by his own imagination... but somehow, he knew that those mornings had happened. It was, he thought, knowledge he would have preferred not to have.

"What am I going to do?" Neil whispered.

"I don't know," Teddy said. " _Yet._ But I'll find something. I promise. I might have to talk to a teacher. Is that all right?"

"Don't tell them about... you know."

"All right. I'll say I'm not sure enough about the Wolfsbane, since it's my first year brewing it. That'll be enough for them. I'll find something for you."


	16. The Room of Requirement

**Chapter 16:**

 **The Room of Requirement**

Teddy ended up sleeping on a sofa in the Slytherin Common Room for the rest of the night, which got him some odd looks when the other Slytherins started coming downstairs. He didn't explain himself, and went up to breakfast with Corky. He thought about trying to sneak over to the Gryffindor table, so no one would be the wiser-it wasn't like he had any dormitory mates to sound the alarm that he hadn't been in his own bed since three-thirty in the morning. But it wouldn't have worked even if he'd had the energy to prevaricate, as the second he entered the Great Hall, Victoire cried, " _There_ you are!"

She was talking to Professor Longbottom, who turned to Teddy with a look that said he'd reached the end of his considerable patience. He said something quietly to Victoire (beyond them, Teddy saw Ruthless give him a helpless shrug), then turned on his heel and stalked over to Teddy, grabbing him by the arm and pulling him into the antechamber behind the high table.

"When you didn't come downstairs for breakfast," he said, his voice dangerously low, "Victoire was afraid that you'd done something foolish again, and got hurt, which is hardly an outrageous assumption, given your behavior this year. She came to get me. You were gone. I realize that curfew ended five minutes before she got to me, but I somehow doubt that left you time to go down and visit your friends in Slytherin, especially without bothering to get dressed first. Sit down and explain yourself."

A guttering flame of anger swirled around in Teddy's stomach. All of the things he'd done wrong this year, and _this_ was what Longbottom was going to go on about? _Curfew-breaking_? But of course, it wasn't the curfew break. It was all of the other things, and now a curfew break on top of it.

Teddy sat down and looked at his bare feet, which were dirty after scuffing along the stone corridors. A gray wave-shape curled up over his instep and licked toward his ankle bone. "I'm sorry I broke curfew," he said.

"I asked for an explanation, not an apology. I already took ten points, so you needn't bother taking them from yourself."

Teddy clenched his jaw. "It was Neil Overby," he said. "Corky called me down because Neil was upset."

This didn't seem to be what Professor Longbottom had been expecting. He frowned and sat down across from Teddy. "Is that the truth?"

Teddy nodded. "Corky's Patronus showed up really late. He and Honoria were up with Neil." He realized how false that sounded and said, "Really-I know it doesn't sound like Honoria, but she was up."

"It doesn't sound like something you'd make up."

"Anyway, he wanted to talk to me. Because of the moon. It's coming up."

"I know. We-" Professor Longbottom stopped and hissed through his teeth. "The quarantine."

Teddy nodded. "He needs a safe place to transform. It's my first year brewing Wolfsbane Potion without anyone watching, and something might go wrong."

"According to Professor Slughorn, you brew it perfectly."

Teddy thought about elaborating on his extremely mild fears about the Wolfsbane Potion and his own skill at it, but his panic about making it on his own this summer seemed very far away. Neil had gone through two transformations, and there hadn't been any problems, and Teddy's skills at Potion-making seemed very adequate in relation to other skills he was meant to have been mastering this year. Elaboration might have made Professor Longbottom move on to trying to reassure him, which wouldn't help Neil.

Professor Longbottom's eyes narrowed a bit, just enough to make Teddy wonder if he was doubting the story, then he said, "Yes, I'm told it's a finicky potion. Vivian was always glad of it, but ever since your dad missed a single dose and ended up rampaging around the grounds, people have been more leery of it than they were at first. Vivian always thought it was a good idea to be careful anyway. That's really why you were out?"

"Yes."

"Well, I'll give the ten points back, then."

"No. People will ask questions. I don't want them thinking about Neil."

Professor Longbottom frowned sternly, then shook his head. "If that's what you want. We really need..." He trailed off. "Teddy, I'm going to give you detention as well."

"All right."

"Because I'll need your help. I'm going to ask Hannah and Minerva and Dean to help as well, and the Headmistress, of course, but it's most likely wise to keep the group small, and you'll need a reason to come back looking like you've been working hard."

Teddy felt bleary and tired. "What?"

"I've been trying to repair the Room of Requirement for nearly fifteen years," Professor Longbottom said. "Now, we have five days to finish the job."

"What if we can't? Shouldn't we try something like Hagrid's paddock? The hippogriffs could keep him company."

"Hippogriffs aren't generally fond of werewolves. It's the same problem we'd have in the Forest. Neil's never really learned to defend himself. I'll look into other solutions-we won't let Neil down-but I think the Room of Requirement is the best bet." He gave his head a sharp shake. "You can get some sleep during Herbology if you'd like to."

Teddy shook his head. "It's all right. I really did sleep a lot. I just need to get dressed."

"Are you sure?"

Teddy did the sum in his head, decided that he'd had enough hours in total since yesterday to call it a decent night's sleep, and nodded.

Taking a shower and getting dressed helped a great deal, and by the time he got to the greenhouses, he felt perfectly well, if a bit achy from the Slytherin sofa, which either needed to be replaced or was cursed against Gryffindors. He guessed it was the former, as at lunch, Corky apologized sheepishly for not suggesting that Teddy sleep in Maurice's bed instead. Teddy didn't mind this. He didn't think he'd have slept any better lying in Maurice Burke's bed and thinking about why it was currently unoccupied.

After his last class, Ancient Runes, Teddy went to the seventh floor. Dean Thomas was hovering near the ceiling on a broomstick, a piece of charcoal held in one hand. Teddy sat down on the floor to watch him. The wall had once had a tapestry on it, but it had been burned during the battle, and the wall had been blank for years. Now, Dean seemed to have covered the stone with fresh white plaster. He'd covered most of it with a charcoal of what Teddy thought was the Hogwarts staff room. A wardrobe stood open, and a class of vaguely drawn students had their wands out. A tall thin man stood beside one of them and-

"Is that Dad?" Teddy asked.

Dean moved suddenly and nearly lost his grip on the broomstick. He grabbed it and swooped down, climbing off of it.

"Been awhile since I've done that," he muttered. "I, er... well, yes. It was the first class we had with him. He taught us to handle a boggart."

"Will it talk? Move?"

Dean sighed and shook his head. "Move, yes. But not talk. The boggart may talk sometimes, depending on who it looks like-it turned into Snape for Neville, and his portrait is just up in the Headmistress's office-but no one ever took memories from your dad, so I can't use the _Imago Vivere_ spell to really bring it to life. I'm sorry. I wish I could do that for you."

"It's all right. It wouldn't really be him, anyway," Teddy said automatically. He'd wished for the drawing Dean had done-or the portrait Dad had done of Mum-to speak, but Granny said that the portraits would never have been all of them, and that they had to learn to let go. He wondered if Dean could get any of Dad's memories from the wedding ring, but he didn't want to risk that spell. If it didn't work, he'd lose what he _did_ have.

Dean shrugged. "It would be _something_. But I bet you'd want one you could take with you."

"Dad would like being in a Hogwarts mural, I'd bet. Even if it can't talk. He'd probably spend all his time in this one even if I had one he could visit, too."

"I somehow doubt that." Dean scanned the rough drawing. "At any rate, most of the rest of us are still here. That'll be Neville-er, Professor Longbottom." He pointed to the small figure beside the one that would be Dad. "And Harry will be there, and Parvati and Hermione and Ron... all of the Gryffindors, really. Oh, Professor McGonagall!"

Teddy looked up. Professor McGonagall and Professor Longbottom were coming up the stairs. The Headmistress-looking happy to have spent the day teaching-was a few minutes behind them.

The five of them stood staring at the blank, battered wall across from Dean's drawing, then Professor McGonagall said, "Well, Longbottom, I believe you're the expert here. Let's get started."

Teddy watched the wall curiously. Rumors of the Room of Requirement had, of course, been common, and students from time to time had tried to re-enter. No one had succeeded.

Professor Longbottom took a few steps to his right, a few to his left, and then came back. Teddy blinked; they were now standing in front of a wooden door, charred black. The metal doorknob had melted and warped. Professor Longbottom tapped it with his wand and it straightened out. "I have to do this every time," he said. "We'll definitely need to get the door repaired." He opened it and led the way inside.

Teddy found himself in a room that looked like most classrooms at Hogwarts-large and high-ceilinged, with multi-paned windows and stone walls, though they were sooty and scarred. Piles of fire debris had been pushed to the wall.

"I Vanished some of it," Professor Longbottom said. "The things that were just caught in here quite unfortunately-I'd guess most of the store room that Crabbe burned. And of course, I wanted to get Crabbe out. That was why I decided to come back here in the first place. I actually came to get Crabbe out." He shook his head at his own action. "He was an idiot, but I didn't want to leave him in an inaccessible room to rot. But there wasn't anything left of him after the Fiendfyre."

Teddy looked at the black smears on the wall and imagined that some of them were actually Vincent Crabbe's ashes. It was horribly plausible. He tried to tell himself that if Crabbe hadn't burned up the Room of Requirement, Mum could have gone back in and been safe, but he couldn't conjure any anger, as he couldn't imagine that she _would_ have gone back in, if she'd had an inkling that Dad was in trouble.

"Maybe we should clean up the soot," he suggested. "You know, in case... well, it might still have some of the Fiendfyre nature in it," he finished lamely, but he guessed the adults knew what he really thought was still in it, as they didn't offer any theoretical opposition to the absurdity, and just set to work.

They worked quietly together for an hour, getting the black marks off the wall and bagging the debris. Hannah and Professor Morse showed up partway through and joined without asking questions. Professor McGonagall bound it all together and Banished it into the corridor. "I'll see to it later," she said. "It can be buried in the Forest."

Dean Conjured several torches and mounted them on the wall. The room was now bare and clean, and moonlight streamed through the windows. "Was everything in here lost?"

"Most of what was stored," Professor Longbottom said. "I found a few things from our camp, but most of that was Conjured, so it wasn't really here. A lot of magical items that the Room could Summon appeared in other places. Moody's Foe Glass ended up in a root cellar. Most of the things that appear here aren't here when the room is in another incarnation. The books went back to the library when we didn't need them, and so on."

"How much of the spellwork is left?" Professor McGonagall asked.

Professor Longbottom shook his head, looking discouraged. "I don't know."

Hannah looked at him kindly, and said, "I think the framework of the spells probably made it through. Fiendfyre tends to consume magic itself, but..."

"Right," Dean said. "Like a computer. It wiped the data, but the structure is still there."

Teddy, who'd managed to mangle his grandfather's computer several times trying to learn to play an electronic card game, didn't think this sounded hopeful, but the adults seemed to accept it as hopeful (though Teddy had the impression that they didn't entirely understand the comment). "So what do we do?"

"Right." Professor Longbottom smiled at Hannah, then took on an attitude of great efficiency. "All right, first things first. Some of this is going to be fairly complex, but let's get the little things done first. Teddy, would you take on the door? If you can't get the knob fixed, just Summon the knob from my office door. I'll replace that later. Dean, check the security spells. Hannah and Cho, try Charming the walls for self-Summoning; I'm sure that's what whoever built the room used for the initial spells." He looked around. "Professor McGonagall, would you mind trying the same thing with self-Conjuring? I don't know what part of the room was originally Charmed for it; things always just appeared."

"I'll have a look," she said, and began without questions.

"Headmistress, if you wouldn't mind, I think I'll need your help getting it to... er... _read_ what we need."

"I'm not sure how much help I'll be with that," the Headmistress said. "I don't know anything about Legilmancy."

"I don't either, but I don't think that's really how it does it. I think it has something to do with-God, this sounds hokey, but life energies. There's some kind of magical life going on here. We need to find it and see if we can't wake it up. I'd ask Poppy, but she has quite enough to do just now."

Teddy felt the blood rise up in his face, thinking of the seven students downstairs, and he turned sharply and headed for the door. He and Uncle Harry had learned quite a few construction spells when they'd been trying to repair the Shrieking Shack, and he put them to work for the first time since he'd lost the house (well, burned it down and then blasted it into oblivion, to be more accurate). The wood in the door was damaged, but more by heat than by the magical properties of Fiendfyre, and he was able to coax it back into shape, as long as he worked slowly. The doorknob, on the other hand, had obviously been in direct contact with the flames. Teddy could get it to straighten out, but then it would twist and warp again. One spell actually made it go red hot and start to drip. Teddy, who was sitting cross-legged on the floor, barely got his knee out of the way in time to avoid a burn.

"Are you all right?" Professor Longbottom asked, cooling the metal and Levitating it back up to the main part of the doorknob.

"Yeah. It missed me."

"You've done a good job on the wood."

"That's pretty simple."

"Maybe you could teach me the spell sometime."

Teddy shrugged, not really believing that Professor Longbottom didn't know it already. It was in an introductory book on magical construction. "Have you found the, er... life?"

"I think so." He put a hand on Teddy's shoulder. "Here, put your hand on the floor."

Teddy looked at the doorknob.

"Let it be," Professor Longbottom said. "We'll just replace it."

Slowly, Teddy lowered his hand to the floor. Across the room, the Headmistress was lying on her stomach on the floor, tracing something with her fingertips. "What am I looking for?" he asked.

"You'll know. Try closing your eyes. It's faint. It's easy to be distracted."

Teddy closed his eyes and spread his hand out on the stone, opening his fingers as far as they would go. At first, he felt only stone, slightly warm from his own touch. He frowned. "I don't-" But he stopped, because he _did_ feel something. It wasn't a pulse or a breath, or anything he'd associate with life, but there was _something_ , a kind of sub rosa vibration in the floor. He smiled, delighted. "Is it in the walls, too?"

Professor Longbottom nodded. "Yes. It's deep down. But it's still alive, Teddy."

"Is it really _alive_? Or just something like it?"

"What's the difference?"

"Does it grow?"

"I don't know. But I sort of suspect that all the time before, it was feeding on its own magic, so I think... yes."

Teddy touched the wall, feeling for the low buzz. It was there. "Maybe if it meets a nice cupboard, there could be more Rooms of Requirement someday."

Professor Longbottom laughed and ruffled Teddy's hair lightly. "You're not half-bad, Lupin."

"Is this how you always sense things that have been Charmed or...?" Teddy shrugged.

"There are other ways. You'll learn them over the next two years. Most basic charms don't leave a trace quite like this, but the ones that are really personal? Yes. I think they all have a little trace of life in them." Professor Longbottom nodded at the door. "Go ahead and Summon the knob from my office. Can you get it installed without any help?"

Teddy thought about a crooked book shelf he and Uncle Harry had made, but thought he'd managed to learn something about the charm work since. "I think so," he said.

"Good. Because I think this may take a while."

Teddy Summoned the doorknob as Professor Longbottom went back to whatever he and the Headmistress were doing. While he waited for it, he pressed his hand against the floor again, then reached under the collar of his robes and pulled out Dad's wedding band. He wrapped his hand around it and closed his eyes, and there it was-a soft, almost imperceptible hum in the metal. He'd probably felt it before and paid no attention to it. He thought he'd try the Marauder's Map later.

The doorknob zoomed up the stairs and nearly hit Teddy in the side of the head. He snatched it out of the air and set about the business of making it work again. It took a while, partly because of the damage, but mostly because Teddy hadn't got enough practice at this business, but after half an hour or so, he thought he had it done properly.

He opened and closed the door a few times, half wishing that someone would look over and say, "Nice work, mate," but of course, the physical repairs were the easy part of the thing, and he'd done more complicated work when he'd been fixing the Shrieking Shack. So he didn't call attention to finishing, just relished the soft "snick" sound of the door closing neatly into its frame, then opening again. The door might take other shapes in the future-some people would come across the room as a grand ball room and others would find a broom cupboard-but he thought the repair would hold, since the door could, symbolically, open and shut.

When he'd finished, he went to the windows and started to straighten the cast iron moldings around the panes. He didn't know if this needed doing, but most of the magic the adults were doing was quite advanced, and no one had time to explain it to a fifth-year. He was halfway up his second window when Hannah Longbottom let out a whoop of joy.

"It's working!"

Professor Longbottom was across the room in seconds. "What is it, Hannah?"

She stood up, holding a china teapot and a cup. "I didn't even mean to do it. I just thought that I could really use a cup of tea, and when I turned around, there it was! Summoned from our rooms."

Professor Longbottom smiled widely, looking as delighted as a firstie Levitating a feather. "Fantastic! I think it just needed more magic continually applied. It needs to start feeding. Everyone... require something!"

Teddy looked anxiously at the other adults, and was surprised to see them looking anxiously at one another as well."

Hannah laughed. "Perhaps you need to be more specific, sweetheart."

"All right. Yes. Something that's been at Hogwarts. Recently. Something simple. Just let the Room start working again. Think of _anything_ that would be handy to you right now, that you've seen here at Hogwarts. We'll worry about Conjuring and Duplicating later, when it's got a bit stronger."

Dean Thomas stared at one scorched wall for a minute, then a bucket of paint appeared beside him, along with his charcoal sticks. The Headmistress decided that she needed a plant, though Teddy couldn't imagine what for. Professor Morse discovered her broomstick leaning against the wall and flew up to the ceiling to start repairs.

Professor Longbottom watched all of this with great affection, and appeared to need nothing other than what he was seeing. He looked at Teddy with a wide grin. "This is the best room in the school."

"Are you going to teach everyone to use it?"

"What possible fun would it be if a teacher told them where it was and how to find it?"

It was a positively Marauder-ish answer, Teddy thought, and it seemed odd to hear it coming from levelheaded Professor Longbottom, but it was the _right_ answer. Teddy grinned back, decided that they needed more light, and watched candles like the ones in the Great Hall appear, floating near the ceiling. Professor Morse swerved through them expertly.

They stayed in the Room for an hour, bringing odd, random things into existence, whether they'd be useful for repairs or not. Professor Morse found her old Quidditch uniform, which she said she meant to put on later, when she had privacy, and suddenly screens appeared. With a flash of light, she magically changed her clothes, and spent the rest of the time in Ravenclaw blue. Professor Longbottom responded by discovering some Gryffindor rosettes, and the Headmistress-leaving aside her usual impartiality-dressed the windows in yellow and black curtains. "We require a Slytherin here," Professor McGonagall said curtly, and two portraits appeared on the wall, both looking irritated at the high spirits.

"Have you nothing of greater importance to do with your time?" Severus Snape asked. Phineas Nigellus just took a look around and headed out of his frame, his nose turned up in disgust. Teddy wondered if he was going to go to Uncle Harry and report on the proceedings.

Dean found a pile of old photographs of Gryffindors, which showed nearly everyone in his year. "I need them as a guide for the mural," he said, "as I've forgotten what we all _used_ to look like." He came over to Teddy tentatively, and showed him Uncle Harry and Ron after a Quidditch match, and Hermione at the Yule Ball with Viktor Krum, and Parvati Patil doing some sort of sparkly charm in the Common Room. Lavender Brown-who Teddy thought had got prettier over the years-was beside her. Professor Longbottom was cheering a Quidditch game, and Dean himself, with Seamus Finnegan, was drawing a banner with a dragon on it. "That one's actually a year later than I need," he said, "but I don't think Seamus and I changed _that_ much in a year. I, er... don't suppose you have a picture of your dad I could use as a guide?"

One appeared between them-it was one from Teddy's room, which showed Dad on a long ago Christmas Day at Granny's-but Teddy pocketed it and said, "You know, I think I can do better." He concentrated, but the morph was always an easy one, even when he was having trouble, and he felt himself grow a few inches and get thinner. He spread his chin and nose a bit and grayed his hair. "How's this?"

Dean paled, and Teddy remembered that Dean hadn't ever really seen him morph, and probably hadn't even seen Mum do it much. "Er... I... well, it _is_ better than a photograph, and perhaps..."

Teddy relaxed the morph. "Sorry."

"No, it's, er... it's all right. I guess I didn't think of it. But you could make a fortune as an artist's model." He gave Teddy a strained smile and a forced laugh, and the image of Dad throwing away his wand, his only defense, so that Dean could have it, came back through Teddy's head. Teddy guessed that the same image was in Dean's head, because the momentary camaraderie fell apart.

Just after nine, Professor Longbottom checked his watch and said, "Oh, Lupin. It's past curfew. I'll get you back up to Gryffindor, as it's my fault you're breaking the rules."

Teddy nodded and said goodbye to the others, then went out into the corridor with Professor Longbottom. He left the door open.

"Thanks for letting me help," Teddy said when they were away a little bit.

"Do you suppose you could get some of your friends to help? Without letting them know, of course, that it's an official request."

Teddy shrugged. "They wouldn't mind. Maybe we could find something in there for a potion for Maurice and Marie and the others."

"Gamp's law," Professor Longbottom said. "Potions are like foods. You have to have some to get more."

"Corky's a Gamp," Teddy said. "Maybe he could put in a good word to change the law."

"If only it were that sort of law." The turned the corner and headed for the Fat Lady's portrait. Professor Longbottom stopped before giving the password. "I wasn't kidding about bringing in your friends. I'll be bringing mine in. Don't spread it all over school, or it might get over-Charmed this early on, but it will need to keep feeding. You won't be able to get in if we're in there doing something else, though, so if the door doesn't appear, don't be disappointed. Just try again later. And of course, please do it before curfew."

"You're glad to see it working again, aren't you?"

"Yes. And not just for Neil."

"Do you think we could use it to get out again?"

"That was fairly complex. If we can, it won't be for a while. But a lot depends on Galdreward's Quarantine."

"It's so stupid!" Teddy said. "Why would they shut us off? They can cure this on the other side!"

"I imagine that they couldn't at the time the Quarantine spell was applied. None of us knew it was still there until it activated itself."

"Do you think the Room will be all right for Neil on Sunday night?"

Professor Longbottom sighed. "I think so. It may not be able to give him all the amenities he might enjoy, but it ought to be able to provide an earth floor to dig in, and do whatever else he needs, and some trees for interest."

"What if the werewolf decides it's hungry? And needs something to eat."

"The room can't Conjure people. People have to come into it on their own. Believe me, there were times that last year that I would have desperately wanted it to produce Harry so I could hand things back to him." He winked. "Don't tell anyone that. It would entirely spoil my reputation."

Teddy morphed his mouth into a zipper and closed it.

"That's just disturbing. I'm glad to see you morphing again."

"I don't think Dean was. I morphed into Dad. It upset him."

"I'll talk to him. He'll get used to you."

"Password?" the Fat Lady asked pointedly.

"Oh, all right," Professor Longbottom said. "Teddy?"

Teddy muttered the password, and thought again that he ought to change it to something Marie would like, but the only thing he knew for sure that she liked was a particular song of Donzo's. The portrait swung open and Teddy went inside.


	17. Shapes

**Chapter 17:**

 **Shapes**

Three days later, Teddy sat in the middle of the Room of Requirement, surrounded by an orchestra's worth of dusty instruments that had appeared. It was meant to be a music lesson (which in turn was just an excuse for using the Room's magic), but organizing a class and teaching it weren't really among Donzo's skills. He'd got Ruthless to apply her considerable Beater's skills to hitting a large kettledrum, and the air was reverberating with deep, rumbling notes as she experimented with the pedals. Corky was running his hands up and down a piano keyboard, at least until Ruthless threw one of her drum mallets at him and he started playing a real song. Donzo looked at him in surprise and he said, "Well, I didn't say I couldn't play at all, just that I didn't play very _well._ "

Frankie was doing scales on his clarinet while Victoire and Story seemed to be having a very good time playing a two-man Flying Saucer, an instrument invented in the sixties and not used since. It was a disk charmed to go back and forth between two players, making an unearthly wailing sound that changed pitch depending on its altitude as they tossed it. Story caught it on one finger and twirled it, making the note spiral upward in a tight, quick wave. Donzo was currently trying to teach Laura Chapman how to properly sit at a harp, and Zach Templeton was doing a complicated charm with several sets of finger cymbals that were flying around him.

Teddy was supposed to learn to get something out of a violin that didn't sound like a cat under the Cruciatus Curse, but Donzo hadn't got around to him yet, so he was ignoring the racket (and the violin, which was sitting on the floor beside him) and concentrating instead on the Marauder's Map. Laura and Zach didn't know about it - he wouldn't have invited them except that they'd been looking after Frankie since Tinny had got sick, and it was very difficult to pry Hufflepuffs away from each other - but it didn't really look like anything from their angle, anyway, and they certainly wouldn't be able to hear him muttering spells.

In the din, he hadn't noticed the end of the dubious kettledrum solo, and was completely taken by surprise when Ruthless dropped down beside him.

"We should come in here for your other little research project," she said. "We wouldn't even need to sneak into the Restricted Section. The books would just appear, wouldn't they?"

Teddy shrugged. "We could even do it before curfew, though that would take some of the fun out of it."

"Well, you're still actually breaking the law, so that should help." She edged closer and looked at the Map, which was open to the Marauders' view, their totems at the compass points. Once he'd opened it, Teddy had set Dad's wand aside and picked up his own, and now it was hovering somewhere over the Great Hall. "What do you mean to do?"

"I'm not sure," Teddy said. "I was going to update it, with all the new places - like this one. The Marauders never knew about it, and I didn't know where it was when I updated it the last time."

"And?"

"I don't know. Isn't it cheating to see the Room of Requirement on a map?"

She shrugged. "Isn't it cheating to be able to see teachers coming on a map?"

"True. And it's not like the Headmistress is going to have it. Just, you know - Victoire calls us Map-masters."

"I'd stick with 'Marauders,'" Ruthless said, wrinkling her nose. "Maybe the room wouldn't show up anyway. It's pretty magical. It might even be able to hide itself from spells designed by a pack of students. Might even be Unplottable."

"If we do the spell inside the Unplottable area, it should get around that."

"Really?"

"Yeah. I mean, once you're inside an Unplottable place, it's there. It's as real as anything else."

"So, what's the problem?"

Teddy smiled, but his mind was going back to stories Uncle Harry had told him - Draco Malfoy disappearing into the Room of Requirement to work his mischief, Death Eaters coming in through the cabinet... it would have been useful to have the Map see into the Room. But it wasn't what the Map was _for..._ Abruptly, he poked his wand at the Map and said, "It's Wings. Tell me what to do."

Ruthless rolled her eyes as the Map cleared. Peter Pettigrew's handwriting appeared first this time: _Mr. Wormtail wishes warm salutations to Mr. Wings, and wonders when he'll learn to make up his own mind._

Dad: _Mr. Moony concurs, and believes Mr. Wings ought to search the Map for his backbone, which he's obviously mislaid._

Teddy frowned at it.

James: _Mr. Prongs would like to register his deep disappointment in Mr. Wings' utter inability to function without guidance._

And of course, Sirius: _Mr. Padfoot would express astonishment that someone of Mr. Wings' fine lineage could be so indecisive, but is unable to do so without laughing at Mr. Moony._

"Mr. Wings thanks the lot of you for your brilliant insights," Teddy muttered as the Map returned to its normal shapes.

"They're telling you exactly what you need to know," Ruthless said. "Do it or don't do it."

Teddy stared at the Map for a long time, trying to imagine pranks and games that might be played if you knew who was in the Room of Requirement, but the scenario that kept returning to his head was one that the Map couldn't have mattered in, and had certainly not been created for. He saw his mother leaving the room so Uncle Harry could turn it into the storage room, and then he saw her by the window with Aunt Ginny, looking down on the horror below. He saw Death Eaters pouring out of a cabinet, and darkness spreading out along the corridor. He saw Bill Weasley's face.

He didn't want the Map wrapped up in all that... but if it happened again, he didn't want it on his head if someone couldn't see it, either. He ground his teeth, then jabbed his wand at the Map and said, " _Reficio._ "

The lines of the castle faded a bit as the ink rearranged itself, then paths and walls that Teddy had found since first year began to appear. The tunnel to the Shrieking Shack vanished from under the Whomping Willow, paths spread a little further into the Forbidden Forest (Teddy guessed it would now show the spot where he'd found himself after arguing with Uncle Harry, though not, of course, the spiders' hollow), and, along the seventh floor corridor, a gray, washed out line appeared around the Room of Requirement. It wavered, disappeared, then came back, darkening as it found its way around the Concealments. Then it filled up with dots and names, like any other room. Teddy waited to be assailed by doubts, but instead, the worries about the subject disappeared, and he started to wonder what would happen if the Room shifted its shape or someone inside it decided that he or she required concealment.

"There," Ruthless said. "Simple." She kissed his cheek, then rolled her eyes at herself and muttered something about getting back to the drums.

After a bit, Donzo came over and utterly failed to get the mechanics of the violin across to Teddy. He suggested that next time, they might try something simpler, like a tambourine. Teddy wasn't hopeful about it.

Over the next two days, Teddy made a habit of looking at the Room of Requirement on the Marauder's Map. Frequently, he would see Professor Longbottom there, sometimes alone, sometimes with Hannah or Dean or Professor Morse. The older teachers hadn't seemed to develop a vested interest in it, though Teddy did see McGonagall in there alone late Thursday night. The room was small at that point, little bigger than a broom cupboard, and she didn't stay long. Most of the time when it was occupied, it was the same size it had been when they'd first cleaned it - a large, empty classroom. Sometimes when Professor Longbottom was there with Dean, it became considerably larger, expanding down the entire corridor. As Teddy watched, the back wall wavered, seemed ready to disappear, then reformed itself. A few minutes later, Professor Longbottom and Dean left. Once when Hannah was there by herself, the Room became circular, and on another occasion, when Professor Morse was there, Teddy thought it might actually have gone higher up, though that was hard to see on the Map, since you could only focus on one level at a time. Most interesting were the times when it was unoccupied. It didn't disappear, but the lines of it were nothing more than a nebulous cloud of ink.

"It's not really shape-shifting," he told Donzo and Ruthless as they paced back and forth in front of Dean's future mural. "At least not my sort. It's more like a boggart." He pointed to the half-sketched future mural, where Dean's boggart was making an abstract attempt to become something frightening. "It doesn't have a shape unless it takes it from our heads."

"Are you sure _you_ have a shape?" Donzo asked. "I mean, how do you know you're not just turning into whatever people want you to be?"

"Because I've actually been alone once or twice, and I promise, I don't turn into a puddle of goo."

"But are any of us ever really alone?" Donzo asked, affecting an air of great sincerity. "I mean, it's a deep theological question."

"Well, if you're going to go that far, then how do you know _you're_ not a shapeshifter, turning into whatever some theological entity wants you to be?"

"Oh, God," Ruthless said, "no one told me Ravenclaw was contagious. Am I showing any signs?"

It was meant lightly, but of course, the Quarantine made it hard to forget that there was a real contagion out there, and it fell flat. They finished their last circuit, and the door appeared. It was a replica of the library door. Teddy opened it.

The Room of Requirement hadn't become the Restricted Section of the library, but it had duplicated (or Summoned; Teddy wasn't sure) several books and a tall set of shelves. He hoped that it had remembered his notebook, and the notebook formed itself on the floor in front of him. There were also several books on animals, and what seemed to be a draped portrait on the wall.

"What's that?" Donzo asked, looking at it.

"Don't know. I was just thinking we needed things to study the Animagus spell. Maybe it's a portrait of an Animagus."

Ruthless went over and pulled the cloth off, and Teddy could see that it wasn't a portrait, but a mirror. She turned away from it. "I think it's evil," she said. "Let's get rid of it."

Teddy slid around to her side, so he could see into it without it showing himself. Donzo nudged Ruthless to turn around again. The image in the mirror wore Ruthless's clothes, but she was younger, and her hair stuck out every which way. Her thick glasses had reappeared, and she had a black eye from one fight or another. Behind her was a rocky cliff over a mountain stream, with her family's battered old house visible far in the distance. She yanked Donzo in front of the mirror and got out of the way.

Donzo's reflection was perfectly unthreatening - he was wearing the wire-framed specs he wore in class, and his hair was tied back neatly at the nape of his neck. He was in the library at Weird World.

"I think it's some sort of true image mirror," he said. "No Donzo McCormack. Just Don Duke. And of course, Danger Girl gets herself in a fight. Come on, Lupin. Let's have it."

Teddy was about to protest that Donzo's fantasy of being "just Don Duke" was hardly indicative of anything, since he always had that choice and never exercised it - no one forced him to be Donzo McCormack - but as soon as he was dragged in front of the mirror, he forgot to say anything.

In front of him was a boy of fifteen with the high cheekbones and gray eyes of the Black family and his father's wavy, light brown hair, coming to a familiar widow's peak on the left side before falling down into his fringe. Aside from the waves, which he apparently morphed out subconsciously most of the time, there was nothing surprising about _that_ ; he'd just been the one to tell Donzo that he did have a true shape, after all.

What stopped Teddy was the burning room behind him - the charred, smoke-filled parlor of the Shrieking Shack. He could see the curtains blowing out through shattered windows, and there was an unidentifiable lump on the floor that Teddy knew nonetheless. It was Fenrir Greyback. Teddy's image stood in the middle of this carnage with blood dripping from its hands.

In an instant, Teddy felt his mind pulled out of the Room of Requirement, out of his fifth year and back to his third. He was in the parlor again, standing near the fireplace, morphing himself to look like Dad. Had he already decided what he meant to do then?

 _You're not him. He's dead. Dead as your mum. I saw 'em both there at the battle, you know... Bellatrix woke me up as she went by, laughing. And who should be there but Lupin and his little twist of tail? Her bleeding out right there on top of him, him wailing like a babe in the woods... 'Course, that was her own fault, wasting time in a battle trying to heal up the breathing dead. Especially with her dear Auntie on the prowl..._

Teddy squeezed his eyes shut, but that didn't stop the memory at all.

 _Oh, she was dead by the time I got there, barely started healing him before Bella took her out. But your dad was alive. You might say I was holdin' his hand when he finally karked it._

He remembered calculating at the time, trying to decide on strategy, ignoring the taunts about his parents' deaths.

Then taking Greyback through the open Floo, into the great magical chasm beyond the fire, and burning him to death there.

Ruthless pushed Teddy away from the mirror - he tripped over his shoelace and sat down hard on the floor, smashing his elbow into the wood - and tossed the cloth back over it.

"It's definitely not a true image mirror," Donzo said.

Ruthless turned on him. "Really? Do you think so? Because I thought I was actually nine, and your little fantasy about being a real boy was completely true."

"My little fantasy, exactly," Donzo said, and Teddy could hear in his voice that he was trying not to take the bait and lose his temper in return. "And your little fantasy about how you're a tough girl. And _Teddy's_..." He jerked his chin in Teddy's direction. "What _was_ that, Lupin?"

"The Shrieking Shack," Teddy said, rubbing his elbow. He used the other arm to push himself up, and got to his feet.

"The night that..." Ruthless shook her head. "Teddy, you don't fancy your hands bloody over _Greyback_? Good riddance to him. Imagine a medal for yourself instead."

"I don't think about Greyback," Teddy said. He went back to the mirror and stared at the black cloth covering it. "Really, I don't. What do you suppose this has to do with the Animagus transformation?"

"Forget the damned transformation," Donzo said. "You're paler than the Gray Lady. You need chocolate." An empty goblet appeared, and Donzo tapped it with his wand in an irritated sort of way. "I have some in my dormitory," he muttered. "Unless Driscoll's been filching it."

The chocolate had apparently not been filched, because the Room was able to bring it. A disconnected part of Teddy's mind wondered why Hannah had been able to bring tea without special instructions, but he supposed the adults knew more about how to work the room than he did. The goblet steamed, and Ruthless picked it up and nearly forced it up Teddy's nose. He took it in self-defense and drank. The memory faded back a little. He looked at Ruthless and Donzo. They both looked wary, and he supposed he couldn't blame them after seeing that.

"I'm all right," he said. "It's probably just some memory mirror or something. Did you ever get into a fight like that, Ruthless?"

She frowned deeply, then said, "Yeah, I guess. A lot, really. Kirk got caught stealing from a Muggle charity box once, and half the town started making fun of my brothers when they came in to shop with Mum. I got into a few fights about it before Hogwarts. After I got my letter, Dad told me to keep my nose clean, and let the boys fight their own fights." She winced, apparently still stinging at the injustice of this.

"And Donzo, I'll bet you spend every day at Weird World in the library." Teddy forced a grin. "I know I would."

Donzo ignored this entirely. "I think it shows who we think of when we think of ourselves. You're not a murderer, Lupin."

Teddy ran his finger down the cloth in front of the mirror and wondered if Donzo would say the same thing if Maurice or Tinny or Marie died, but decided not to put the question to him. Instead, he squared his shoulders and said, "Well, we needed things to help us study, and the Room gave us this. We know it's all tied up in Identity, so what does it say? Hawks are predators, right?"

"And raccoons scavenge in dustbins."

Teddy pointed his wand at a three-legged stool and said, " _Quisquiliae_ ," and the stool became Granny's kitchen wastebasket.

The corners of Donzo's mouth twitched. "And yet, I find it oddly unappetizing."

After that, Ruthless pulled in sweets she had hidden in her wardrobe and dropped them into the bin, and all three of them scavenged from it while they got back to business. The question of the troubling images in the mirror slipped to the background. Ruthless still refused to actually try the transformation, since she was convinced she'd be caught and her future career would end before it started, but Donzo managed to get his fingers to turn into sharp claws once, and Teddy, thinking of his third year, tried to replicate an accidental spell he'd done on his eyes. He succeeded in turning them into hawk's eyes, with their incredibly clear vision, but it gave him a headache again, since the rest of his body didn't morph to accommodate the change. Last time, he'd needed Madam Pomfrey to help sort it out, but this time, the Room provided the counter-spell. Teddy memorized it - headaches or not, and whether or not he ever truly made the transformation, sharp eyesight might come in useful someday.

Donzo checked his watch casually, then hissed that it was nearly curfew. They gathered the things the room hadn't provided them with - mostly the books they'd had from classes - and went out into the corridor. Teddy poked his head back in at the last minute, wondering if the Room would lose its shape when they were all out, but he could still see the same shelves, the mirror under its drapery, and the three-legged stool. He started to mention this as he came out, but noticed Dean on his broomstick, hovering around the top of the new mural.

"I see and hear nothing," Dean said, assiduously not looking down as he worked on a chandelier.

Donzo looked like he meant to say something else, but couldn't in Dean's presence. Instead, he made a hand sign at Ruthless - a yapping mouth - then pointed at Teddy, then at the now-invisible door. She nodded. Donzo headed off for Ravenclaw, and Ruthless and Teddy turned toward Gryffindor. From the corner of his eye, Teddy saw Dean drop to the ground and start doing circuits in front of the door.

Halfway between Dean and the Fat Lady, Ruthless stopped and pulled Teddy behind a tapestry. It was a spot they both knew well from their two bouts of going out, but if snogging was on her mind, she wasn't acting on it. "I think McCormack wants me to have a long, meaningful conversation with you about the damned mirror."

"I really don't want to talk about it."

"I know. I'm no Ravenclaw, and neither are you, no matter how much you pretend. I just... well, I've always got your back if you need help. That's all."

"Thanks."

"And Weasley was there with you. I reckon she could help as well, if you needed it." She ground her teeth, apparently pained by saying this.

Teddy found himself looking at her lips and thinking that he was going to be breaking a Ruthless Rule very soon if they didn't get out of here, which seemed rather incongruous with the subject of the conversation. He backed out from under the tapestry and said, "I'll keep it in mind, but Victoire has her sister to worry about right now."

Ruthless came out after him. Her face was flushed. He held out his hand, and after a moment's hesitation, she took it. They walked back to the Fat Lady hand in hand, not discussing the subject. She let go to go through the portrait hole, and didn't take his hand again. The subject was dropped, at any rate, because the Common Room was crowded and buzzing with a dozen different conversations. Victoire was winding her way through the third year boys, a wide smile on her face.

"Teddy!"

Teddy glanced at Ruthless, who shrugged. Victoire noticed it and her smile faltered, but apparently she was happy enough not to let it bother her for long, as she resumed her weave through the crowd and finally reached him.

"What is it?" Teddy asked.

"Madam Pomfrey came up with a Potion she thinks is going to work. They sent Everard Galpin's portrait to the Ministry to get the parents' permission, and it came through, and they're going to try it tomorrow!"

Teddy blinked, a bit dazed. "What?"

"A potion!" Victoire repeated, then twirled on the spot, hugged Teddy, and hugged Ruthless. Ruthless was apparently too shocked by this to respond. Victoire smiled broadly. "Madam Pomfrey's going to try it to tomorrow morning. She says she thinks she has it, and it only took so long because she needed to get permission from the parents to do an experiment, and it took forever with the portraits."

"And she told _you_?" Ruthless asked.

"No, Professor Longbottom did. All the Heads told their own Houses. The other first years are making her a card to say welcome back. Marie, I mean." She pointed over to where Marie's dormitory mates (and most of the first-year boys) were working on a large purple card with Charmed glitter fireworks that exploded over the words "Welcome back, Marie!" "I'm sure she'll be tired. I should clean up her space, so she won't have to come back to a mess!"

Before Teddy could gather his mind enough to stop her, she'd disappeared up the girls' staircase.

"What _is_ it with that girl and cleaning?" Ruthless said, shaking her head. "Her sister's going to kill her as soon as she feels up to it."

Teddy shrugged. "She likes it. And she's pretty good at it, actually. Marie's used to it. Er... not that it's not annoying," he added quickly. "It's very annoying."

"Mm-hmm."

Ruthless went over to the fireplace, where her brothers were building some dangerous-looking contraption. Teddy knew he was welcome to join if he wanted to, but he didn't. He tried to summon Victoire's elation that something was being done, but the whole business felt off-kilter. Daniel and Madam Pomfrey hadn't mentioned anything at all. Perhaps that's what they'd been doing while everyone worked on the Room of Requirement, which might not even be needed if everyone got cured tomorrow morning, and the Quarantine lifted.

But something about the idea seemed _wrong_. Teddy had started the plague, after all, and...

 _And so naturally, you consider yourself so important that a plague can't be cured without your expert, fifth-year input._

Castigating himself for his inflated ego didn't help, either, though he acknowledged the truth of it - the only thing he'd accomplished by trying to help Madam Pomfrey was making himself feel better. If she'd thought he could help with the cure, she'd have asked for it.

He went up to his room, where Checkmate was involved in a mortal game of chase with a mouse that had made the mistake of invading her territory. Teddy pointed his wand at it and Banished it to the far side of the door.

Checkmate gave him a look of confused frustration as the door shut, then set to attacking his trainer laces. He let her go about it, lying down on the bed with his leg dangling over one side for her to play with.

Madam Pomfrey was better known among students for her discretion than her innovative techniques, but Granny had always said she was a brilliant Healer. She brewed excellent potions, and Teddy had never heard of her losing a student she actually had time to treat. She'd been a Hufflepuff, not a Gryffindor, so the chances that she was rushing in before doing all the footwork were fairly small. There was no _reason_ to believe that her potion wouldn't work.

But something nagged at Teddy's mind nonetheless, and kept him from sleeping. His History of Magic textbook - usually guaranteed to work better than any Sleeping Draught - was ineffective, and lying in a darkened room trying to think of nothing at all was even less so. (For one thing, a Maze phantasm appeared at his desk at one-thirty and stayed there for ten minutes, scratching at an essay from some other year until Teddy thought he might go crazy from the sound of it.) He finally lit his candles again and picked up what he considered the dullest of his Fifi LaFolle collection, an almost adventure-free novel called _Alexa's Agony_ , which dealt with an heiress called Alexa Highsmith and her dimwitted lover, Rocco Thain, a churlish parolee from Azkaban. Her family didn't accept him, even though she assured them at great length that he was reformed now. This went on over several chapters, until Rocco got angry about not being accepted and robbed the family vault. By this time, Teddy was weary enough that he slipped into a dream without even noticing. He was in the vault with Rocco, who had acquired Sirius Black's face, but if it was one of Teddy's more unusual dreams, it showed no other signs of it.

There was no gentling of the transition between sleep and waking, no moment of drowsing, not even a shocking scream to mark the passage. Teddy simply opened his eyes and was awake.

The sky was a deep, inky black, but at the horizon, Teddy could see a tiny glimmer of blue. The stars were fading, and the nearly full moon was close to setting.

He dressed quickly, put his candles out, and snuck out through the empty Common Room into the silence of the corridor outside. Nearly Headless Nick, who was floating near a window, blinked at him with owlish surprise.

"Teddy Lupin!" he said fondly. "Out for a bit of an adventure? Shall I watch for your compatriots?"

"Thanks, Nick, but no. I'm just going to the hospital wing."

"Are you feeling ill?"

"No."

"Is there any way in which I might assist you?"

"I can't think of one, sorry." Nick looked crestfallen, and Teddy scrambled for something. "Perhaps... er... if Victoire or Ruthless is looking for me at breakfast, you could mention where I am, so they don't worry."

Nick smiled brightly. "Ah, yes. Truly chivalrous, to guard the fairer sex from needless concern..."

Teddy nodded weakly, hoping for Nick's sake that he didn't use quite those terms with Ruthless, who would find some way to do bodily damage to him despite his lack of a body.

He heard voices from the hospital wing before he got there - the Headmistress, checking off the names of the ill and their parents' permission; Madam Pomfrey, saying, "Cho, I need that at an absolutely even temperature..."; the bubbling of a cauldron, the clinking of goblets.

"I still don't like the blindfolds," Daniel was saying as Teddy cautiously opened the door. The patients were lined up, their eyes covered with heavy black cloth. "They'll be terrified if they wake up and can't see."

"It's Curse-borne, sweetheart," Professor Morse said, eying two separate cauldrons carefully. The flame under one flared and she quickly subdued it to maintain temperature. "And the mechanism is direct eye contact. I'm afraid your bedside manner isn't going to work."

"I'm immune. I can give them the po - Teddy?"

The adults all turned. Teddy stepped further into the door. He had no idea what he meant to say.

"Why are you here?" Madam Pomfrey asked. "I'm afraid I have no time this morning to - "

"May I help?"

"You can keep the second fire even," Professor Morse said, stepping toward one of the cauldrons and leaving the other open.

Madam Pomfrey gave her a look like she had deep misgivings, but seemed to decide that there was no time for argument. "Very well. If I tell you to leave, you will leave."

Teddy nodded and froze a flame before it could leap and superheat a single part of the cauldron.

Madam Pomfrey went to the Headmistress. "Pomona, were there any objections from the parents?"

"No. They're all simply concerned with curing their children."

"All right. I suppose alphabetical order is as good as any. I'll wake Burke. You give him the potion, Doctor."

Daniel dipped a goblet into Teddy's cauldron and came up with the thick, reddish potion. He measured it with his eyes, then tipped a splash back in. He went to Maurice's side.

Madam Pomfrey put a hand on Maurice's head, then pointed her wand at him and said, " _Exsuscito_."

Maurice's hand moved, then he started thrashing. "Can't see... can't..."

"It's all right," Daniel said. "It's a blindfold. We'll explain later. I'm going to put a goblet to your mouth."

"Who is it?" Maurice cried, thrashing harder. "Who's talking?"

"It's Dr. Morse," Teddy called.

"Lupin?"

"Yes, it's me. The potion's all right." Teddy dearly hoped this was true.

Maurice calmed slowly, and eventually drank from the goblet Daniel had pressed to his lips.

"Give it a moment," Madam Pomfrey said. "It should work quickly."

They moved on to Tinny, then a Ravenclaw boy, then Marie. Each of them awakened the same way, though they were able to reassure one another without Teddy's help after a bit. When they finished with the last patient, Daniel came around to Maurice's bed alone. He signaled the others to stay back, then sat down.

"How are you feeling, Mr. Burke?"

"Tired."

"I'm going to take the blindfold off now, to see if there's any change. Please only look at me."

Maurice nodded. Daniel lowered the blindfold. The great blisters that had erupted on Maurice's face weeks ago had disappeared. Daniel peered into Maurice's eyes, then checked his arms and legs for more sores.

"I think he's clean. Madam Pomfrey, is it safe to do a diagnostic spell yet?"

"No. I don't think so. I don't want to take any chances about magical interactions with the potion."

Daniel nodded and moved down the line, giving Maurice an instruction to put his blindfold back up before he talked to anyone.

Marie had struck up a conversation with the boy beside her by the time Daniel got around to checking on her, and Teddy thought she sounded fine. His worries had been for nothing.

Madam Pomfrey looked at the Headmistress, then at Professor Morse. "I think we have it," she said, then raised her wand at the door. A school broomstick came in. "Mr. Lupin, if you would be so kind as to check the Quarantine at the gate?"

Gratefully, Teddy took the broom and flew it out a window she opened for him. The dawnlit grounds sparkled with dew, and Teddy could see the hippogriffs in Hagrid's paddock, straining eagerly for their breakfast. He flew low enough to wave to them, careful to bow over his broomstick. Dapple made a leap and flew beside him for a little while, then went back down to Buckbeak.

Teddy curved around and went over the lake, feeling like he could fly forever. The Quarantine would be gone. He wouldn't have to think of his late night worries anymore, and be stay awake, afraid that they were real.

The wall loomed up ahead of him, and he knew that it would just be the school's normal security that would stop him, a gentle bounce-back, a -

A burst of painful energy blasted Teddy backward at least ten feet from the wall, nearly toppling him from his broomstick. He barely controlled a dive and plowed into the mud at the lake shore.

The Quarantine was still active.

That meant that the sickness was still inside.

He jumped onto the broom, not bothering this time with the nicety of observing the morning. At the top speed he could handle, he flew back to the open window of the hospital wing. "Madam Pomfrey!" he yelled before he even reached it. "Madam Pomfrey, the Quaran... the Quar..."

He came through the window and stopped.

Maurice and Marie were walking about, dazed but healthy, but several of the others were bleeding again, clutching their faces.

And Madam Pomfrey had collapsed to the stone floor.


	18. Christmas Under Quarantine

**Chapter 18:**

 **Christmas Under Quarantine**

"Teddy!" Daniel shouted. "Turn away. Get into the corridor! Maurice, Marie, Gavin, follow him, but _do not look at anyone!_ Teddy will blindfold you as soon as you get out." He started over to one of the screaming students, then looked irritably over his shoulder. "Teddy, I mean it! You're in charge of them until Cho can look at them. Get them out of here!"

Teddy dropped the broomstick and headed for the door, beckoning behind himself, hoping they were following. As soon as they got into the corridor, he could hear their footsteps on the stone. He looked sideways and saw them shuffling out, Maurice in the lead. A boy he didn't know - presumably the one Daniel had called "Gavin" - was in the middle, and Marie brought up the rear. Maurice got them far enough from the door for all of them to line up with some room between them, and sat down facing the wall.

"Go ahead, Lupin. Blindfold us."

Teddy couldn't remember the spell for blindfolding, so he just used a severing charm to rip three strips from the base of his robe, and handed them out. The other three covered their eyes, then turned around.

"What happened?" Teddy asked. "When I left..."

"I don't know," Marie said. "I feel fine!"

Maurice groped behind Gavin to pat Marie's shoulder, then said, "I don't know, either. But Tinny was all right as well, and she asked if she could stretch her legs. Madam Pomfrey thought it would do us all good. But while Madam Pomfrey was telling us how long we'd been out, and that we'd have help making up our work and so on, Tinny got dizzy, and she fell, and she caught one of the others - "

"Bitty Noble," Gavin said dully.

"Right. Betty Noble," Maurice said. "Tinny's face was bleeding again, and it must have passed back to Betty - "

" _Bitty_."

" - or maybe the potion just didn't work on her either. And then she fell into Madam Pomfrey, and then it was just the mess you walked in on." He put his hand to his cheek. "Is my face bleeding again? It's wet."

"It's just sweat, I think," Teddy said.

The door to the hospital wing opened, and Professor Morse came out. "We've got everyone back in stasis," she said. "I'm going to have to risk a diagnostic. I don't think it'll have a bad reaction to the potion, but even if it does, we have to know. I'll be able to take care of you if it does."

The three patients shifted uncomfortably, then Marie said, "I'll go first. If anything goes wrong, the boys won't have to go."

Professor Morse raised her wand. " _Exquiro corpus._ "

Light flared around Marie, a glimmering aura. Teddy couldn't have read any complex results, but he'd grown up with a Healer and was quite familiar with the look of no results at all. The spell glowed and pulsed, but didn't pool anywhere, didn't show any sickness or injury.

"You're clean of it," Professor Morse said. "You may take off the blindfold."

Marie hesitated, then pulled the blindfold down. She blinked and looked at Teddy. Teddy met her eyes. No Bloodspots came.

Professor Morse repeated the spells on both Gavin and Maurice, and both were clean. She also ran it on Teddy, who'd twisted an ankle plowing into the ground when he'd been thrown back, but was otherwise in good shape. She healed the strain absently.

Daniel came out a moment later and sat down beside Teddy. He had three bundles, which he handed across the corridor to his patients. "The things you were wearing and carrying when you came in," he explained.

Marie opened hers and brought out the feathered costume she'd had on at Frankie's Halloween party. She ran her finger along the top of the mask. "Why are we all right, and the others aren't?"

"It's hard to say. Muggle medicines work differently on different patients, and it's possible that potions are the same. And if it didn't work on one, the rest may have been re-infections."

"Are we going to get sick again?" Gavin asked.

"I don't know. Everyone who has it at present is in stasis and can't look into your eyes, but if that phantasm pirate - "

"Brimmann," Teddy said.

" - shows again..." He sighed. "Well take care of it. I'll need someone to help with the magic in the hospital wing; Cho has classes to teach, and you have classes to take, perhaps Dean or Hannah..." He rubbed his face vigorously. "I want all of you to be careful. If you start to feel dizzy, or to bleed, look away from everyone as fast as you can, and come back to the hospital wing. But for now, go back to your dormitories. Get some rest. That goes for you as well, Lupin. If you slept three hours last night, I'll eat my hat. I'll have Victoire bring up some breakfast for you and Marie."

Dazed, all four students stood up. They walked together to the entrance hall. Students were starting to go to breakfast. Corky burst up from the stairs that led to the Slytherin dungeon and shouted, "Burke! Up and about, we'd better start watching our dark relics again..."

"He's supposed to get sleep," Teddy said.

"Well, then, that's what he's doing." Corky put his hands on Maurice's shoulders and started to frog-march him back toward the stairs. Their little parade was interrupted by Donzo, who gave a whoop and joined them. Teddy heard them arranging to get Maurice fed, then nodded to Marie and Gavin. Gavin looked more than a little vexed that Donzo, his Housemate, was more interested in a Slytherin's recovery, but before he could work up a proper indignation, other Ravenclaws noticed their group and came over to gather him. He went up the stairs with a second year girl who seemed very fond of him.

Marie looked up the stairs. She was very pale, and her light freckles were prominent. The entrance to Gryffindor was seven floors up. Teddy moved around in front of her and bent. "Hop on," he said. "Piggy-back. I do it with Lily all the time."

"I'm too big," Marie said.

"I'll Charm you feather-weight."

She gave him no further argument. He charmed her and then lifted her onto his back.

At the third floor landing, he looked up and saw the first crowd of Gryffindors coming down. Victoire was among them, and she broke away from Kirk Scrimgeour to rush down the stairs like she was on a Firebolt. Teddy let her take over carrying Marie, and there was a blur of action and explanations for the next hour. Victoire sent a few of the boys to get them breakfast and got them settled on the Common Room sofas ("Where I can look after both of you!"). Ruthless came up from Quidditch practice, plopped down on the end of Teddy's sofa, put his feet on her lap, and used his shins to support the potions textbook she was studying from. Teddy tried to explain that he was just sleepy, not sick, but he drifted off before he got through the sentence.

He woke up around noon, still in the Common Room. Marie was curled up asleep on her own sofa with a knitted blanket around her. It had what Teddy first took to be a zigzag pattern on it, but closer inspection showed it to be her initials - MW - interlocking. Molly must have made it. Looking down at his own blanket, he realized it was Victoire's. It looked like Marie's, but the interlocking letters were VW.

Victoire was sitting by the fire alone, which was odd on a Saturday. He went over, the blanket around his shoulders, and sat down beside her.

"Where did everyone go?"

"I thought you and Marie could use some peace and quiet, so Ruth offered everyone Quidditch lessons. I think they're just under the Tower. Sometimes, they fly past."

"Oh." She leaned forward, arms around her knees, and looked into the fire. The flame light played over her hair and lips. He looked away. "Thanks."

"I was just thinking," she said quietly, "about the day we... you know... at Hagrid's paddock. Do you think about it?"

"Not deliberately."

"It was nice," she said. "I liked it."

Teddy decided that he ought to derail this quickly, but couldn't get any further than, "Victoire..."

"But it would be awkward, wouldn't it?"

"Just a bit."

She shrugged. "Oh, well. Teddy, are you quite all right?"

He looked at her, surprised. "I'm fine. I was just tired. I was never sick."

"I don't just mean today. It's ever since you got hurt."

"I..." Teddy looked at her, then sighed. "Victoire, there's something you ought to know about how Marie got sick. It was my - "

But he didn't get a chance to finish his confession. The ceiling flashed white, and a ring-tailed lemur dropped from it. In Maurice Burke's high-strung voice, it said, "Lupin, get to Ravenclaw straightaway. It's a catastrophe!"

Teddy stared at the lemur, then at the spot where it had been after it disappeared. He felt numb and tired, and unprepared to deal with a disaster of any sort, but if Maurice was in Ravenclaw, if the plague had spread...

Another Patronus spun down from the ceiling - Donzo's raccoon. "Teddy, it's not an emergency, it's just Maurice - "

The lemur returned, and began to talk over Donzo's message.

"It _is_ important - "

" - tearing his hair out about - "

" - because it's _weird_ , one more odd thing, and - "

" - stupid things that - "

" - nothing good can come of it!"

" - really aren't his business."

The Patronuses were unaware of one another; they didn't have any real sentience. Nevertheless, Teddy could have sworn they gave each other an exasperated look before disappearing.

Victoire waited to see if another was going to appear, then looked at Teddy with her eyebrows raised. "What's that about?"

"No idea. I'd best find out."

"You're meant to be resting!"

"So's Maurice." Teddy got to his feet and pulled off the blanket. He folded it and handed it down to Victoire. "Thanks for the loan."

"You really shouldn't..."

"I don't know. Donzo's probably right. Could be a laugh."

Victoire considered this, then said, "Well, at least tell me about it when you get back."

"It's a deal."

Teddy felt stiff from sleeping on the sofa and fuzzy-headed from sleeping the morning away. He stretched as he went down the seventh floor corridor, past the Room of Requirement (currently invisible) and Dean's mural, where the boggart glanced at Teddy and made a feeble attempt at turning into a werewolf. As it was still just sketched in for space, it was a stick-figure dog with circles for feet and a few incomplete triangles for teeth, and it wasn't at all frightening. He turned up the corridor toward Ravenclaw and climbed the shallow flight of stairs that led to the door knocker.

"What is the central failing of prognostication?" it asked.

Teddy sighed. Of all of the Houses, Ravenclaw was the easiest to break into, as it required arcane knowledge, but not _random_ knowledge that only Ravenclaws would be privy to. "Central failing... it's, er, that if you stop a disaster, you get... er... less respected. Because the thing you said would happen didn't." The door knocker waited for an elaboration. "But if you don't do anything, just so you get a good reputation, no one trusts you, as you could have acted and didn't."

"A valid point," the door knocker mused.

"Can I go in?"

It was still considering the subject when the door opened, and Maurice leaned out. "Teddy! Get in here." He yanked Teddy's arm and pulled him into the bright, sunlit Common Room of Ravenclaw. Donzo was sitting across an armchair with his long legs draped over the side. He shook his head wearily.

Maurice was pacing and muttering to himself, making hand gestures to the air.

Teddy looked at Donzo. "What is it?"

"I'll let Moe get to it," he said. "He said he didn't want to tell it twice."

"Is everyone all right?"

"No!" Maurice said. "Everything's insane. What were you lot _doing_ while I was out? You weren't keeping any sort of eye on Corky, obviously..."

"What is it?" Teddy asked him.

"Corky!" Maurice answered, as if it were the most obvious answer in the world. "He got me back to Slytherin and Don grabbed me some breakfast before he left, but I wanted to stay in the Common Room instead of going to bed, as it's the middle of the day, and then Neil Overby came down, and he said he's transforming tonight, and he was nervous, and wanted _Honoria_ , which isn't that strange since he's very stupid, but Corky went to get her, and when he came back they were _HOLDING HANDS._ " He stopped, his throat working at the great villainy. "And _HE KISSED HER._ " He sat down on an ottoman. "She took Neil off somewhere and I asked what it was about, and he said they're going out. And that he _likes_ her. It's a disaster."

Teddy was struck by a conflict among a desire to laugh, a desire to throttle Maurice, and an unpleasant sense of shock at Corky's inexplicable behavior. He looked at Donzo, who handled Maurice's occasional outbursts better than anyone else in the group.

"It could be worse," Donzo said cautiously.

Maurice turned on him. "How? After four and a half years of sharing dormitory space with Corky, I think I'd know if he was even slightly prone to go out with Geoffrey Phillips." He looked around nervously, as if expecting the unpleasant Geoffrey to emerge from any of the rooms in his House.

"Well," Donzo said, "he could be going out with her the way she used to be."

"A malicious gossip who'd turn on you the second your back's turned?" Maurice slapped his forehead. "Oh, wait, no, that's how she is now. My mistake."

"She's not as bad as she used to be," Donzo said. "Come on, Lupin, back me up. She's helped you out a few times."

Teddy wasn't sure he liked being called to Honoria Higgs's defense. "Then turned around and started digging around everything I give her, looking for a seamy underbelly," he said, then added, grudgingly, "But she's been nice to Neil this year."

"Why are you in favor of this?" Maurice asked. "It's _Honoria!_ He is going out with Honoria."

"We got that, thanks, Moe." Donzo turned and sat forward with his elbows on his knees. "Which means that if we're to keep up with Atkinson, we'd best find a way to get along with Honoria Higgs."

Maurice made a sound something like "Oh!", except that it sounded more like he was trying to swear and couldn't think of the perfectly appropriate curse. "Agh." He stood up and started pacing again.

Teddy sat down on the ottoman Maurice had vacated. He felt certain that he ought to be thinking about the plague, and Madam Pomfrey, and how much stress Daniel was under, and how Neil had to transform in the Room of Requirement, and how Marie had nearly died because of him, but the dazed thought that kept returning to his head was, _Corky and Honoria? Really?_ Looking back, he supposed he could spot clues. Corky _had_ been quite nice to her, and maybe she'd been making a special effort to look pretty... He blinked and shook his head. "Donzo's got a point. What are we going to do, exile Corky?"

"But... _Honoria!_ " Maurice fell helplessly into a Ravenclaw chair. "What's he thinking?"

"I'd guess it's the hair," Teddy said, thinking of Honoria's thick, straight brown hair, and how it had looked when she was standing by the fire, or when she put it up in a professional-looking bun to do interviews. "Don't tell me you've never noticed her hair."

Maurice gave him a look of utter disbelief. "I can honestly say, I've never thought about Honoria's hair," he said. "Not even for a second."

"Can't say I have, either," Donzo said. "That's just you, Lupin. Someday, there will be a girl invented that you can't find anything irresistible about."

"There are girls I don't like!"

"Really? Name one."

Maurice frowned. "Can we get back on topic?"

"What's to say?" Donzo shrugged and sat back. "It's done. Corky's chosen a dark and tangled path. The question is whether or not we leave him to navigate it all by himself."

"Well, when you put it that way... " Maurice said, looking defeated. "But still, he should've asked us first. Not fair, inflicting Honoria on us."

"We'll remember that if you ever fall crazy in love," Donzo said, and Maurice snorted at what he considered the absurdity of the notion (Maurice's notion of love was quite Slytherin, and Teddy had a feeling that he would end up giving questionnaires to potential wives to see if their ambitions matched his). Donzo rolled his eyes. "As long as we're all here, anyone for a hand or two of Tarot poker? I'll be gentle with you fragile, recovering flowers."

Teddy stood. "No, really. I should, er..."

"Go back and brood about things that aren't your fault? Sit down." Donzo pointed his wand at a chair by one of the study tables, and it flew at Teddy, catching him behind the knees and forcing him to sit. Donzo tapped Maurice's shoulder. "Bind him to the chair if you have to, and don't listen to any confessions he wants to make. I'll go get my deck. I got sick of girls Summoning it to see if I liked them, so I made it un-Summonable. Bad idea."

He disappeared upstairs. Maurice cleared the table and brought it over to where Teddy's chair had landed.

Ten minutes later, they all had cards on their foreheads (Donzo had the Ace of Cups, and Maurice, The Emperor), and were placing bets. Teddy felt a nagging guilt - if he was well enough to be here playing cards, he was well enough to go help Daniel. But any time he made a move to leave, either Donzo or Maurice blocked him. By the time they went down to supper together, he was more rested than he would have been after a hundred naps on the Gryffindor sofa.

That night, Teddy went down to Slytherin to collect Neil. Corky and Honoria were with him, and Teddy noticed for the first time - though he thought he might have seen it all along - that they were standing close to each other, oriented in one another's direction.

"Maurice mentioned something?" Corky asked.

Teddy smiled. "It may have come up in passing."

Honoria moved closer to Corky and narrowed her eyes in a threatening sort of way.

Teddy shook his head. "Don't worry. I think we've talked Maurice off the ledge."

Her eyes opened in unfeigned surprise. "Er... thank you. If that means that you and McCormack aren't planning to... I don't know."

" _Teddy_."

Neil's voice was developing a distinctly hard edge, and Teddy decided to save any potential digs at Corky for later. He put a hand on Neil's shoulder and led him upstairs.

"Now," he said when they reached the seventh floor corridor, "we just need to pass back and forth three times, thinking of what we need - a safe place for you to transform."

"With real dirt on the floor," Neil added. "Nothing to clean up."

"Right."

They passed the mural once, twice, three times (the boggart continued to present itself as a half-formed werewolf, and Teddy guessed that Neil's boggart was the same as his own). The door appeared - worn, rustic wood with iron moldings. Neil opened it.

The Room of Requirement had become a jungle-like greenhouse, with a lot of Professor Longbottom's larger plants a box of loose topsoil that took up half of the floor.

"Will this do?" Teddy asked.

Neil swallowed. "It should. I've never done this alone before."

"I wish I were an Animagus. I could stay then. Professor McGonagall is - "

"No." Neil waved his hands in negation of the idea, and Teddy remembered what he was trying to hide in the first place.

"All right, then. I'll do some charms so that no one accidentally hears you. And I'll be right outside," he added, without thinking about it. Neil looked like he was about to argue, so Teddy said, "I'd appreciate it if you'd go inside, though. It's getting close to moonrise."

Neil backed inside and shut the door. It disappeared from Teddy's view. He sat down on the floor under the mural.

An unearthly scream broke the stillness before Teddy could cast the silencing charm - pain and desire mixed together - and it became a triumphant howl. Teddy could feel the little prickles of his hair as it stood up along his back. This would have been the bugbear of his childhood, this horrible sound that Neil Overby was making. He'd have heard it every month, unless Dad had chosen to go away, which would have been scary as well. He did the charm, but her could still hear it in his head.

Above him, the sketched boggart-wolf crouched menacingly and prowled the mural.

After a while, he slept. Professor Longbottom found him there at some indeterminate time and, instead of forcing him back to Gryffindor and docking points, just Conjured a camp bed and said nothing at all. They didn't speak of it in the morning, either, as they walked Neil down to the hospital wing for a quick diagnostic spell from Hannah. Teddy checked on the patients. There was no change. Daniel was buried in library books.

November moved along stodgily, getting stuck in a rainy, muddy week during which students clung to the castle when they weren't forced outside, then jumping into a bright burst of late warmth just before December. In Care of Magical Creatures, the fifth years watched Dapple struggling to fly, and Teddy dreamed of the way his wings worked, the powerful muscles across his back that held him aloft, after a fashion, anyway. Hagrid asked if any of them would like to ride Buckbeak - "Just fer a treat, things bein' so gloomy an' all" - but no one took him up on it. Teddy thought he might try it later.

He met with Donzo and Ruthless as December began, to work with the Animagus books again. Ruthless wavered on her decision not to try it, but when Donzo tried to persuade her by calling her "foxy," she rejected the idea again. Teddy was able to transform and return his eyes at will now, and by the time Ravenclaw beat Hufflepuff on a cold December Saturday at the Quidditch pitch, he could see the details on the Golden Snitch from the spectator stands if he so chose.

The Maze phantasms were appearing less frequently, probably because Teddy was staying well away from it. The power of its initial surge had to be dying down. Now and then, a stranger would appear and disappear, but on the whole, life seemed normal, if claustrophobic. Teddy awoke in a panic that he wouldn't be able to do his Christmas shopping, but then realized that he wouldn't be able to get anything out of the castle, anyway. Teddy spent extra hours with Professor Morse and a pile of advanced Potions books, searching for any substitutes for Pearlescent Poppies, the lack of which, they agreed, had been what had caused the failure of Madam Pomfrey's attempt. (She had used ordinary poppies, and Professor Morse thought that was enough to make it unstable.)

Teddy dreamed of the Maze. In his dreams, Greyback and Bellatrix were nearly always his guides. They took him nowhere, and laughed at him for being lost. He awakened from these dreams thinking of the Maze, thinking that somehow, the answer was in it, but that was absurd. He'd accomplished nothing by going back in except for making things worse. The Maze had loosed the plague into the world, but the plague wasn't _of_ the Maze, and it couldn't solve it.

As Christmas approached, the idea that there would be no trips home this year started to dawn on students. Teddy found a first year girl weeping in the hall. A sixth year Hufflepuff boy threw a perfect _tantrum_ on the subject in the Great Hall, invoking his father, who sat on the Wizengamot and was a scion of an old family (the Dimwittys, of whom Teddy had no knowledge), who would hear of this outrage. Maurice, an encyclopedia of family connections, also drew a blank on the name. The decorations went up, including Hagrid's twelve Christmas trees, but it all seemed dispirited.

Neil transformed again a week before Christmas, and this time, Professor Longbottom appeared before Teddy set up camp and sent him back to Gryffindor.

On the day after tests ended, the Headmistress announced that the Great Hall would be open for anyone wishing to make gifts for their friends at Hogwarts. Dean would help with artistic projects, and a terrified-looking Winky nevertheless steeled herself to offer baking lessons to "young misses and sirs" who cared to learn. Frankie (who still seemed at something of a loss without Tinny operating as his lieutenant) would help people spruce up their own belongings to give as new gifts. "You might also consider favors as gifts," the Headmistress suggested. "For instance, as my Christmas present to Professor Longbottom, I'll look after Greenhouse Three for a week, so he can finish marking tests."

Most of the students were less than enthusiastic about this, but Victoire and Marie Weasley took to it with gusto, wearing last year's Weasley jumpers and challenging everyone to make at least one gift. Story Shacklebolt, never one to let Victoire take the lead without a fight, got the third year Ravenclaws to make it a contest with the third year Gryffindors, and their year was so big that its mood tended to carry the school. Teddy found himself writing stories for Marie, Victoire, Ruthless, and Frankie (as well as finishing one for James, even though he wouldn't be able to send it), and making small things for everyone else. Judging from the crowds in the Great Hall, he didn't think anyone would be left wanting.

Christmas morning dawned foggy, wet, and cold, but the packages Teddy found by his bed were cheerfully wrapped. Victoire knitted him an uneven pair of socks and a lopsided muffler in Gryffindor colors. Ruthless had carefully duplicated all of the pages of Mum's book that had her handwriting on them, and bound them into a little pamphlet with her fluttering butterfly on the front. Marie had drawn him a jubilant picture. Frankie had bound another of his Marauder stories. Donzo, Maurice, and Corky had teamed up to make a sort of charmed toy band, which was meant to wake him up whenever he got, in Corky's word, "cranky." Daniel Morse gave him use of the microscope whenever he wanted it, and promised to get him one as soon as the Quarantine lifted.

He made a point of putting on anything he could wear, and wasn't surprised to go down to the Common Room and find other people comparing their own gifts. Ruthless was actually wearing a beaded hair clip that Victoire had made for her, and Victoire was reading Teddy's story and laughing. He peeked over her shoulder to find out what was making her happy (it was a scene where Sirius met a Veela and was claiming to be a Muggle rock star).

They all went down to the Great Hall together. It didn't feel like Christmas morning without Granny's special coffee cake, or the anticipation of spending the day with the Potters, but everyone was making an effort. The House tables had disappeared, replaced by smaller ones, so people could sit with their brothers, sisters, and friends. Teddy took a seat with most of the Forest Guard, along with Marie, Neil, and Ruthless. Honoria sat primly beside Corky.

During all of the gift-making frenzy, the teachers had made themselves scarce, and they weren't at breakfast yet. "They're up to something," Maurice said, looking suspiciously at the high table.

"As long as they're not going to spring a Yule Ball on us," Corky said, and all of the boys raised their goblets of pumpkin juice to that.

"I think it might be good for morale," Victoire said.

Honoria nodded. "I think it would be fun."

"I told you she's evil," Maurice grouched.

To Teddy's surprise, Honoria just grinned and threw a lazy sort of curse at him, causing his hair to briefly turn into garter snakes.

The door to the antechamber behind the high table opened, and the teachers filed in, each with a large bag. The Headmistress set hers down and said, "Happy Christmas!"

There were some murmured responses, but most people were just looking curiously at the bags.

"As you can see," she went on, "we've been quite busy. We've enlisted every portrait at Hogwarts with an analog anywhere else we can reach. They've all been gathered at the Ministry for the past week, and I'm happy to tell you that each one of you has a letter from home."

The Heads of House - wearing red and white hats with holly sprigs on them - fanned out to the tables, handing messages out to stunned looking students. Teddy's table was near the back, and he watched his classmates as they got their letters. Most just held them for a minute before settling in to read.

Professor Longbottom was the first of the Heads to make it to Teddy's table, and he drew out four letters. "Scrimgeour," he said to Ruthless, "this is via Everard Galpin's portrait, and it's directly dictated to a BasiQuill, so it ought to be relatively sane. Victoire, Marie, and Teddy... I'm afraid that yours have come through Phineas Nigellus, for obvious reasons. You all, I'm quite sure, will recognize his commentary." He shook his head and handed each of them a letter. Victoire and Marie bent to compare notes. Ruthless read hers quietly, and Teddy saw her looking over at the table where her brothers were, to see if they'd got theirs yet. He opened his own.

The BasiQuill handwriting was anonymous and bland, plain black on white. The letter wasn't even especially long, but Teddy weighed it in his hand and scanned without reading before he started. He took a deep breath, and dove in.

 _First, I feel it necessary to pass on the information that your godfather is perfectly maudlin about your absence. He passes my Grimmauld Place portrait several times a day, sighs melodramatically, and asks if I have news, as though I have nothing more important to do with my time than run about Hogwarts portraits, seeing if you've had an outbreak of spots. I'm to inform you that he wishes you had been able to come for Christmas, and that he regrets whatever quarrel you may have had, though I personally assume that you are responsible for it. He hopes you will be able to speak directly to him soon, for whatever reason._

 _Your grandmother is here with that bohemian she's been keeping time with, and both send you holiday greetings. Andromeda is understandably concerned for your safety. She has several presents waiting for you, and expressed the rather obvious idea that a holiday during which you are at Hogwarts is somewhat different in tone for her than a holiday during which you are at home. She hopes you are with your friends and not lonely. The bohemian asks that you pass on his greetings to someone called 'Donzo,' though I told him I was carrying quite enough messages already to qualify as a post owl._

 _Young James attempted to convey a story, which involved my great-great-grandson, your father, a hippogriff, and an infestation of nonexistent creatures called nargles. I fear I am unable to convey the text, but it involved ridiculous derring-do, and ultimate triumph against the enemy. Young Albus spoke to me at great length, but his message to you apparently boils down to 'Happy Christmas' and something about a card game you promised to teach him, which he somehow anticipates learning in the near future. Lily wishes to send a kiss, but I will not lower myself to making obnoxious noises to simulate one. Your godfather's wife would also like to send her love._

 _Messages from the absurdly extended Weasley family will undoubtedly come for Miss Victoire Weasley and Miss Marie Weasley, and I do not intend to repeat them ad nauseum. I imagine the young girls in question are not so petty as to refuse to pass on holiday greetings. Hermione Weasley wishes in particular to tell you to mind your studies, even in midst of this, as she believes that O.W.L.s will not be delayed._

 _You also receive Christmas greetings from Dafydd and Dora Apcarne, as well as their daughter Dorasana, who adds that she ought to be there with you, as she was only a few days too young to join you in Quarantine. The child MacPherson Apcarne had no intelligible comment. Miss Berit Ollivander sends good wishes, and has implied that they may also come from her grandfather, though I find this doubtful. Lavender Brown also says 'Happy Christmas,' and suggests that her employer, one Josephine LaFolle, with whom you are apparently familiar, wishes to say something of a similar nature. My great-granddaughter Walburga's comments are not suitable for transmission._

 _After all of these guests had finished their requests to my portrait, your godfather returned to add - and insist that I quote him directly - that he loves and misses you. I told him you were somewhat old for such nursery story sentiment, but he pressed the issue, and I am quite unfortunately bound by my agreement with the Headmistress to do as he says._

 _I remain,  
your esteemed ancestor,  
Nigellus_

Teddy read this over a few times. He didn't mind Grayfur's tone; he'd grown up listening to it, and it was as familiar as Aunt Ginny's raised eyebrow or Granny's habit of cursing under her breath. So many things had happened since Uncle Harry had left that Teddy had nearly forgotten that they were quarreling (though the memory of it came back easily enough). A kiss from Lily. An apparently long conversation with Al that undoubtedly would have made sense if he'd been there to hear it. Granny and Ellsworth (and he hoped she was taking her own advice about not being lonely). He pictured them all at Uncle Harry's house, lined up by Phineas's portrait to send messages, and he ached to be home. Looking around the Great Hall, he didn't think he was the only one.

"Maurice," Donzo whispered across the table. Teddy saw that he was holding his own letter. "Moe?"

Maurice looked up from his note. "What?"

"We're about to quarrel. I'm afraid I'm under strict orders from the Weird Sisters."

Maurice frowned, then shrugged. "It's Christmas. You can do charity."

"Thank you so much for the permission. _Accio_ guitar!" Donzo's guitar came flying into the Great Hall, and he caught it easily as he walked up to the staff table and spoke for a moment to Headmistress Sprout. She smiled and Transfigured a table into a low platform, which Donzo sat on the edge of.

"Do you really think it was an order from his dad?" Corky asked.

Teddy, who'd had the pleasure of spending an afternoon with Kirley Duke, had no doubt at all.

Donzo did a _Sonorus_ Charm on his throat, then said, "I don't know about you lot, but I'm homesick!"

There was a smattering of curious laughter. Most students at Hogwarts did a particularly odd sort of magic concerning Donzo - they knew him and treated him as another student, while at the same time thinking of him as the boy in the magazines and on the Wizarding Wireless. When Teddy had been going out with Lizzie Richardson, who was in Donzo's House, year, and nearly all of his classes, he'd noticed that she had a picture of him from _Teen Witch_ pasted to one of her notebook covers. She seemed to make no connection at all between it and the boy sitting at the next desk.

"Anyway," Donzo said, "in my family, we have a little tradition on Christmas Eve. It's sort of a sing-along. We have friends over." There was more laughter here - "Weird Christmas" had overtaken Celestina Warbeck as the most popular Christmas show in wizarding Britain. "I missed it last night, I'm afraid, so I'm just going to have to do it this morning. Since it's just us, I thought we could do everyone's favorites."

At first, the requests were for the standards - "Joy to the World," "Away In A Manger," "The Three Wizards and the Star," "Father Christmas Broke the Floo" - but once he got going, and people began to forget their homesickness, they started to challenge him with more obscure carols. Donzo's musical memory was prodigious, and he was able to go on without a hitch for twenty songs, but a second year Muggle-born girl finally stumped him with something called "Snoopy's Christmas." Her prize for stumping him was to be dragged up onto the makeshift stage to teach everyone the silly thing. By then, everyone was laughing and comfortable. Donzo switched to recorded music, and they spent the rest of the morning having a perfectly cheerful Christmas party. A few of the bolder elves came upstairs and pressed themselves against the wall, looking terrified, but tapping their long toes. Story asked Winky to dance. She called him "a very naughty boy," but danced with him anyway, very clumsily. Teddy found himself dancing with Victoire, dangerously close to a bit of Charmed mistletoe, and extricated himself as quickly as he could.

He looked around. Corky and Honoria were dancing. Maurice was involved in an animated conversation with Roger Young, and Donzo was, agreeably enough, giving autographs to first years.

Teddy frowned. He couldn't see Frankie anywhere, and Frankie was tall and stocky, hard to miss. It didn't take long to realize where he'd gone.

Teddy set off for the hospital wing.

Frankie was there beside Tinny Gudgeon's bed, her letter in one hand. His other hand brushed her hair from her forehead. It left a thin smear of blood from one of her blisters, but she didn't notice and Frankie didn't seem to care. He looked up. "'Lo, Lupin," he said. "I'm not sure they can hear in stasis, but I thought her parents would at least want her to get her letter."

Teddy sat down across the bed from him. "I'm sorry. I guess we shouldn't..."

"Have a good Christmas?" Frankie gave him a wry smile. "Are you kidding? Tinny would never have left it to McCormack if she were down there instead of me. That's why I helped with the presents."

"Oh."

"Teddy, this isn't your fault."

"What?"

"Mum put it in her letter to me. She said to make sure you know that it isn't your fault. The thing she gave you is doing things it isn't meant to do. She also said to tell you not to go back in without help."

"I'm not going back in at all!"

Frankie raised his eyebrows. "I know we don't spend as much time together as we used to, Teddy, but I do still know you. Just promise that you'll have help."

"There's no one to have help _from_ ," Teddy said. "So I can't."

Frankie nodded, and put Tinny's letter away. Teddy sat with him until he decided it was time to go down for Christmas tea, and they left in reasonably good spirits, considering. But the nagging thought of the Maze had returned to his mind, like a persistent cough.

Maddie was right. He needed help with it.

But there _was_ no help.

He put his hand in the pocket of his robe and his hand brushed over the parchment of his letter.

It clicked into place.

Teddy leaned over and told Ruthless that he was going upstairs for a moment to get something he'd forgotten, then slipped out of the Great Hall and took the stairs two at a time to the seventh floor and the Room of Requirement.


	19. Nigellus

**Chapter 19:**

 **Nigellus**

He rounded the corner into the seventh floor corridor and skidded to a stop in front of Dean's mural. The shapes were more filled in now, though only the boggart seemed aware of Teddy's presence. It spun and from Dad's full moon into a fully formed werewolf, with drool dripping from its sharp teeth. When Teddy caught his breath from his run and started pacing back and forth, it paced along behind him. He could see it out of the corner of his eye. The class backed away from it, then, as Teddy turned for his third and final round, one of the students in the mural stepped up, and it turned into a snake. As the door appeared, the snake grew long eyelashes, rose up to its tail, and started to do a flamenco number. Dad, unaware of anything outside of the mural, laughed with silent merriment.

Teddy stopped with on hand on the door knob, then waved with the other and said, "Happy Christmas, Dad."

The drawing continued laughing. Teddy smiled back, then went inside and shut the door.

The Room had reverted to what Teddy thought of as its natural shape - a mostly empty classroom with high, arched windows. Rain was lashing the dark afternoon outside. There as a small desk near the front, and a comfortable old stuffed chair. On the wall in front of it was the portrait of Phineas Nigellus from the Headmistress's office. It was empty.

Teddy went up to it and touched the frame. "Grayfur? Can you hear me?"

The tip of Phineas's narrow, aristocratic nose appeared at the edge of the frame, and his voice followed it. "As I have told you, your mother, and my great-great-grandson on at least one hundred occasions - "

"Sorry, Grayfur. I mean, Great-great... er... Professor Black."

He came fully into the frame and took a seat, looking leery. "I suppose you want me to carry yet another message. None of the other students were given such a privilege, but - " He stopped. "Where am I?"

"The Room of Requirement," Teddy said. "I thought it was easier than breaking into the Headmistress's office."

"I see. You _haven't_ been given such a privilege." He stood up.

"No, please wait! It's not about messages."

Suspiciously, Phineas sat back down. "Hmmph. I imagined you would wish to send your regards to your family, but apparently you have more important matters to which to attend."

"I do want to say hello, but that's not why I called. It's about the Daedalus Maze."

Phineas drew back. "I can give you no information."

"Please. I know it was you and your friends who built the first one. I've broken mine somehow - er... well, actually I broke it by - "

"I have no need to know about your particular misadventures with Royce's invention."

"It's leaking."

"I see."

Teddy waited for nearly a minute while the portrait blinked at him, then blurted out, "Can you help me, Grayfur?"

Phineas thought about this, then said, "No."

Something seemed to collapse inside of Teddy. The memory that Phineas had been there, that he knew, had come so clearly and suddenly that he'd felt it must be the key that would unlock everything. But it was useless, like anything else he'd tried. He sat forward in the chair, his fingers laced behind his neck, then looked back up at the portrait. "Why not?"

Phineas shifted uncomfortably. "This portrait retains memories I have chosen to give it, something of memory of my personality, and various publicly known records of my activities. It is not a Pensieve."

"Oh. Right." Teddy got up.

"You would want my journal."

Teddy stopped. "What?"

"My journal. Unlike your generation, gentlemen of mine kept journals to record our deeds. Mine were never far from me."

"At Grimmauld Place," Teddy guessed. "I can't get them."

"I never kept my work at home."

"They weren't in here, were they? In that storage room?"

"Certainly not. Headmasters' papers are kept in a locked vault in the school library."

"I need to see them," Teddy said, and then they were on the desk. There was no moment of arrival; they were simply there: ten dusty, leather-bound volumes. Teddy could see bits of paper sticking out of them in places - newspaper clippings, perhaps, or other mementos. Slowly, he walked to them, put one hand on them. "Thank you, Grayfur," he said.

Phineas nodded curtly. "Have you a message to return to your godfather or other family members?"

"Just happy Christmas. And that... I'll fix it."

"I find it unlikely that the latter sentiment will ease your godfather's mind," Phineas said, "but I will dutifully report it nonetheless." He turned and strode purposefully out of his frame.

Slowly, Teddy reached for the first, letting his hand linger on the old leather. It was like touching time. He drew it out and opened it to the first page.

 _ **The Journals of Nigellus,  
Explorer of Mysteries**_

 _July 5, 1863_ _  
As I leave my boyhood and school days behind me, I feel compelled to commit to writing those things which I have learned, and will continue to learn. I do this for the benefit of my own clear thinking on these matters._

 _To begin with the ending of my school days, I have left young Apis in charge our Hogwarts gathering. He is reasonably clever, for a Gryffindor, if too quick to jump into a fight without thinking of the consequences. He has sworn the oath to seek out the deepest mysteries, though we all agreed that we should no longer employ absinthe in the service of this effort, as it causes lips to loosen too much._

 _I write this entry on the deck of a Muggle ship, bound for the Orient. Regius and Ilustrus have gone to explore what the Muggles call the "engine room." I have no love for this mode of travel, and would have preferred Disapparition, or even the Floo, but my companions preferred a more leisurely pace of travel, and even I am forced to concede that our own methods of ocean transport lack this sort of luxury. Arxcis had initially taken my side in the argument, preferring speed, but as his father insists that he train in a trade this summer - as a shop clerk, no less! - instead of joining us, his vote was discounted. Father, of course, always thought it improper that gentlemen should associate socially with a tradesman in any case, but I find that nonsense quite old-fashioned and stuffy..._

There was nothing about the Maze here, of course, it was early, but Teddy found himself drawn in anyway. He needed to Summon a Latin dictionary to cipher out the names - "Apis" was a bee, as was "Dumbledore," so he supposed that Phineas had left whatever their "gathering" was in the hands of Dumbledore's father, Percival. Arxcis was obviously Maurice's ancestor, though Teddy wasn't sure how he'd come by the name. The other two, he couldn't guess, but assumed they were among the names Maddie had mentioned. He traveled with them on their trip to the Oriental edges of the Empire, wincing at their unbridled colonialism, but enjoying the camaraderie that they'd shared as they sailed, climbed, and flew their way around the Victorian world. He wondered if Donzo, Maurice, and Corky would want to revive the tradition, perhaps visiting all of their birth places to start with, and going from there.

He finished Phineas's first journal, which covered his first three years out of school, then chose another at random. A newspaper clipping fell out of it. There was a picture of Phineas with several other young men. Phineas did, indeed, look a great deal like Sirius - in this picture, he was even laughing. It was now 1870. The headline read, "DEPARTMENT OF MYSTERIES REIMAGINED."

 _from Miss Ursula Flint  
Ministry of Magic, London.  
The languishing Department of Mysteries, housed - but unstaffed - in the bowels of the Ministry of Magic, has long been considered a relic of medievalism, but now, under the leadership of Phineas Black, scion of the illustrious Black family, it is being brought into our modern world._

 _Black, a dashing young man with a flair for the dramatic, has long thought that the questions once studied only by priests and scribes are of practical value to the wizarding world._

 _"Young wizards must learn the deep magic of the world," Black says, "or we risk stagnation in a world where the Muggles around us are advancing more quickly than we are..."_

Teddy pulled this volume to himself, and a small slip of parchment was dislodged from a page somewhere near the middle. It fell to the floor, and he bent to pick it up without thinking about it. In thin copperplate writing was a very short note:

 _N,  
The only way out is in.  
A_

Teddy opened the journal to the middle, close to where the parchment seemed to have been. The entries here were short and cryptic - "R still cold" or "X seeking artifact" - so he turned back to the beginning, hoping they would make more sense in context. As he turned the book, his eyes happened down to his watch. He'd taken longer than he'd intended to, and if he didn't get back soon, there would be questions.

He piled the journals together and did a Binding Charm on them, then picked them up and turned to leave. The portrait, he noticed, was gone from the wall. It had given him what he needed, and it was undoubtedly back in the Headmistress's office now. He wasn't sure if he needed tamp out the torches that had appeared as the sun set, but, just to be safe, he did so. The room was plunged into shadows and silvery moonlight, and at the edge of his vision, he thought he could see its shape beginning to waver.

He left.

Professor Longbottom and Hannah were sitting in the corridor on a bench that one or the other of them had Summoned. She had mistletoe in her hair. Teddy decided not to contemplate why they were waiting for the Room of Requirement, and just gave them a forced smile.

When he got back to Gryffindor Tower, there was still a Christmas party going on. Mistletoe was being thrown about with gusto, and four girls - two of whom Teddy could have named, if pressed - ran to him as he crossed the room, and kissed him on the cheeks. Ruthless, in one of the chairs by the fire, rolled her eyes and beckoned to him.

He shook his head and went up the boys' staircase.

His room was dark, and he only lit a single candle on his desk before getting out the 1870 journal again. He opened it and let all of its ephemera fall out. Aside from the _Prophet_ article and the cryptic note - both of which he affixed to his wall with Sticking Charms - there were receipts from various magical businesses (Teddy recognized none of them), a letter from the reporter Ursula Flint which made it rather clear that her interest was not merely journalistic (Teddy checked Granny's book on the Black family, and was not surprised to find that she had later become Phineas's wife), and several black and white photographs.

Of most interest to him was a stiff Victorian picture of seven wizards, with a dapper-looking Phineas Nigellus at the center. It had been professionally captioned with their real names. Percival Dumbledore was furthest left. He had a cloud of light-colored hair that Teddy knew from the Maze was really red. After Dumbledore was Aloysius Leary, a tall, gaunt-looking man with wire-framed glasses. Then Gordon Burke, who might have been Maurice after a bout of time travel, and Phineas. To Phineas's right was a stocky man named Fletcher Green, then there was tiny Dedalus Royce, then Prescott Borgin. He studied their faces and their names, learning them so he would always recognize them, but he was more interested in the signatures above them. Phineas had signed it "Nigellus," Dumbledore as "Apis," and Burke as "Arxcis." Aloysius Leary was "Ilustrus," and Royce was "Regius." Green was "Calamus" and Borgin was "Pontifex." Teddy had enough Latin to guess most of the meanings, but didn't know enough about the men or their names to know what the Latin was referring to.

He studied this picture until he had the names Phineas would have used as clear in his mind as he could, then opened to the beginning of the journal.

 _1 September 1869_ _  
Even now, seven years beyond my school days, the first of September still seems the only truly auspicious date upon which to launch an intellectual venture of any magnitude. At the urging of Arxcis, we met yesterday at Knockturn Alley to purchase our initial supplies, and after a pleasant lunch at the Leaky Cauldron, detoured into the main of Diagon Alley to peruse the wares at the new bookstore near Gringotts. Pontifex expressed the opinion that a store devoted to the sale of new books and school books could hardly be expected to thrive in a world where the books of true value were written in another age. Apis, always something of an wag, suggested that we should travel in time so that Pontifex might take an interest in our own work, despite its obviously inadequate location in time. Arxcis, more practical, suggested that Pontifex open his own place of business to sell the sort of wares in which he thought more interest would be shown._

 _"I, a shopkeeper?" Pontifex interjected. "No, my dear Arxcis, I shall leave such trade to you. Your mind is suited to gold and interest and exchange. My interest in such wares is for their own sake, not the sake of profits."_

 _Arxcis took this with considerably better grace than I would have, had our positions been reversed, but it was at this point that our conversation turned in a more rewarding direction. Regius, picking up on Apis' joke, offered the idea that we begin our studies with Time - "The old thief ought to be caught someday, don't you agree?" We were all supportive of the notion. Calamus believes that the Mystery of time contains all of the others. There was some pleasant argument about this. Illustrus thinks that Death is the chief of the Mysteries, in which the others are contained, while I am more in agreement with Calumus - a change in time is alone enough to cause a change in death. Arxcis reminded me that the opposite is not only true, but more often the case - Death changes Time on a daily basis. I, for the sake of argument, declared the Mind to be of utmost importance. Regius, against all dictates of logic, chose Beauty as the most important of the Mysteries, and Pontifex chose Consciousness or Identity. Apis, in an attempt to vex all of us, I think, chose Faith. Leave it to a Gryffindor to actually_ _live_ _in a different, less enlightened, century._

 _Being men of the world, none of us brought up the greatest mystery, the one which binds man to man and year to year, that which is a leap of faith and a balm to the troubled mind, which holds beauty and fills the universe. I'm sure we all know it quite well - we all have families, after all - but talk of Love is not for men, nor is it for scientific study of the subject._

 _Ah, but that was yesterday. Today was spent in the less cerebral, but still rewarding, occupation of building our offices. Most of the Department of Mysteries was devoted to the ancient veil, where our ancestors once listened for the voices of the Dead. We have preserved a small amphitheater there, in the hopes that the Department will grow and the Mystery will be more carefully studied in the future, but likely by a small group of wizards, and perhaps witches someday - my mind is not closed on this subject, though at present I prefer not to involve the possibility of amorous distractions. The area around it, we have built into large rooms devoted to other Mysteries. Regius means to create an entryway which will allow us to bypass distractions and go to our area of study upon arrival, but he has not, he said, chosen a mechanism as of yet. My own office is in the corridor between Beauty and Faith..._

Teddy smiled. The office Maddie had set him up in to learn the Maze was Phineas's, and she hadn't even known it. He didn't know exactly why that made him happy. He couldn't recall ever thinking, "I'd really like to follow in Phineas Nigellus's footsteps." But it did somehow make everything less alien.

The first months at the Ministry were taken up by the minutiae of building up the Department. Percival Dumbledore went on a scavenger hunt of sorts to find artifacts of faith beyond those that had survived a period of monastic rule at the Ministry during Medieval times. In the company of Kendra, to whom he seemed to be engaged, though Phineas didn't say so directly (he disliked Kendra and seemed to hope it would all blow over), he went to the States, but failed to gather artifacts from a new religion that had appeared there in the west. He went to India to retrieve temple gods and to Jerusalem for scrolls of Jewish and Muslim law, and to Japan to collect artifacts of Shintoism. By December, he'd managed to find elements of all of the major religions and several minor ones, but they were all sitting, unresearched, in a side room off of Beauty.

Phineas occupied himself with building the Mind room, where he created brain-like organisms that he hoped would store thought, as a Pensieve would store events. It was wildly successful as storage, but he found that trying to retrieve the thoughts caused such extreme pain that the thoughts were soon forgotten by the recipient. Without the knowledge of the others, he started to build a small room where he meant to study Love, if he could find a suitably scientific way to do so. To Teddy's great frustration, he didn't mention anything he actually _put_ there.

It was Dedaulus Royce's studies in Beauty, of all things, that led to the Maze, even though it was, from its inception, more concerned with Time and Identity. Royce had apparently only chosen Beauty because none of the other, more assertive, members of the group wanted it, and was more interested in other things, but he determined in October that no study of Beauty would be complete without "the face that launched a thousand ships." Helen, a witch who had chosen to return as a ghost, was currently haunting ruins owned by a British bank. Teddy couldn't imagine using something like that to, in essence, purchase a ghost, but it had been done. Helen, who'd been traded as a commodity for three thousand years, apparently didn't mind. It was she who led Royce to the magically concealed ruins of Daedalus's maze on Crete, and it was there that the twists, walls, and creatures of what would become the Department's first testing tool were conceived.

At first, they'd only been able to use it to see specific events that were known to them, or to make the most obvious of predictions (including, to Phineas's utter disgust, the weather). But as Christmas passed and the new year began, Dedalus Royce stumbled on the answer that would create the Maze as the Department understood it.

 _6 January 1870_ _  
As Regius said this morning, there is perhaps no finer day for an epiphany than that which is called Epiphany. He realized this morning that he has been too focused on mere Time in the course of his invention, and it was necessary, if we are to view beyond the limited scope of crystal scrying or tea leaf reading, to consider Identity and Mind... and all of the others. We chose to forgo lunch today, and all sat in the central room - the Death chamber - as it is the only one not dominated by one or the other of us. Arxcis didn't think this auspicious, but Apis said that Death is not to be feared. Arxcis was still uncomfortable, but participated nonetheless. I believe he was more afraid of losing face than he was of Death._

 _Combining magic is always something of a risky proposal, and I shall admit that I had some concerns about my more secretive activities. After all, I was meant to contribute the Mystery of Mind, which is my alleged area of expertise. Would my work with the Greater Mystery, perhaps, interfere? But I chose not to discuss this, and it appears to have been the wisest course of action, as I believe it was the Greater Mystery which produced the most wonderful of effects._

 _After we had all finished adding our Charmwork to Dedalus's Maze, we drew lots to enter. I was fortunate enough to be the first. I noticed the change immediately. In the past, the Maze was of bricks, upon which visions were portrayed, when I entered it, it was a living thing, a park with green hedges and an iron fence, one I believe to be near my own home._

 _And who should be standing at the entrance of the park, but my dearest, long-departed and unfairly taken elder brother, Sirius?_

 _I shall admit to being momentarily unmanned at the sight of the boy. He was as I remembered him in every way - a careless spill of black hair, the gray eyes we share, the cheerful, mischievous smile. I fancied that he was inviting me to one of our grand adventures, which took us sometimes as far as the nearby Muggle play park, where we tested ourselves against dangerous, cunning creatures such as squirrels and robins (I should point out that it never occurred to us to harm such creatures at the time - we merely attempted to follow them to their homes, an enterprise of great interest to boys of our age). As if in a final stroke to prove his identity, he shifted his shape, as he so often had to amuse me, giving himself the nose of a dog and the ears of our family house elf, Bedivere. I nearly wept in realizing that I had forgotten this shape, the shape which I would always follow, because it delighted me so as a lad._

 _This, of course, was not a productive response to the phantasm appearing before me, so I exerted control of my senses and banished my boyish reaction to make room for a proper man's response. My brother waited patiently, and when I had gained self-mastery, turned to lead me down into the maze of greenery. I attempted to communicate with him, but while he seemed happy, he did not respond, and I presently came to the conclusion that the vision before me was a Conjuring not of my brother, but of my own imagination, a guide, if you will, into something of importance to me. I followed now with more clinical interest, though the boy who had so enjoyed seeing his lost brother again mourned this realization..._

Teddy sighed, remembering his mad desire to touch Mum when he'd first seen her, when he'd entered the Maze with Maddie. He'd known it was impossible - Maddie certainly would have told him if the Maze could bring back the dead - but for a moment, it just hadn't mattered. Phineas's first trip into the Maze wasn't much different from that trip of Teddy's, actually, though he thought the shifting of the guide was just Sirius morphing. He saw happy moments from his own childhood, and the death of his beloved grandmother Callisto. Like Teddy, he had traveled the branches of the Black family tree (he saw another Metamorphmagus he couldn't identify, but Teddy knew from Granny's research had to be Banan the Black, the medieval founder of the family), then returned to his own time. He saw the carriage that would crush his brother's life from him, and fled the Maze before he was forced to see it again, though in his journal, he referred to this as choosing to leave as he had "no need of assistance in recollecting that particular moment." Teddy could sympathize.

There was a sharp rap at the door.

"Who is it?"

"Victoire. May I come in?"

Teddy looked at the pile of journals and felt a wave of annoyance that he'd have to put them aside, then one of disgust at himself for getting too caught up in all of it on Christmas Day. He closed the journal he was reading and went over to open the door.

Victoire came inside, her Phineas-dictated letter in one hand. She was wearing last year's Weasley jumper, which was a pale lavender that set off her eyes. It was also, he noticed, a bit too tight these days. He forced his eyes up. "Everyone says Happy Christmas," she told him. "Except for Marie. When I told her I was coming up, she said to tell you that you were a sour old Scrooge."

Teddy frowned. "I'm trying to figure out how to break the quarantine."

"Why you?"

"Because it's my fault it's here."

Victoire measured this, then shrugged. "I wondered what was getting at you."

"I made your sister ill."

"I don't know about before, but you're apparently making her ill at the moment."

"I'm not joking. I did something, and that's why Brimmann and the plague got in. Remember the day you found me in here?"

"So your brilliant plan is to keep doing magically stupid things until it's fixed?"

"My brilliant plan is to take some responsibility for my own mistakes." Teddy felt angry blood in his cheeks. He sat down at his desk. "Sorry you don't think I can handle that. Must run in the family. Uncle Harry thinks I can't handle things, either."

"Where did he get that idea?" Victoire asked acidly. She turned and headed for the door, but stopped and turned back before leaving. "Have a happy rest-of-Christmas, Teddy. I mean that. Come downstairs. Let Marie throw a Wheeze at you. You've earned it."

Teddy looked at the pile of journals, then nodded and followed Victoire out, gathering Checkmate up as he went. Most of the Gryffindors were still in the Common Room, and the floor in front of the fireplace had been cleared for dancing. Checkmate caught sight - or scent - of Bushy and Oggie and bounded over to them. Teddy started to ask Victoire to dance, but she was already headed away, toward Kirk Scrimgeour, who held out his hand and led her into the crowd. He wasn't nearly as dangerous a dancer as his sister.

His thoughts were interrupted by a flood of cold water that drenched the back of his robes. He turned and found Marie, an innocent looking rubber duck in her hand... innocent except for the fact that it was spitting water at a prodigious rate. Teddy drew his wand and sent the stream back at her, soaking her hair. She laughed, and a moment later, he was dancing with her, laughing. When the song ended, he asked Ruthless, and spent the rest of the evening happily ducking her flailing elbows. He caught sight of Victoire once or twice, dancing with various members of her third year army or teaching the girls how to do a Veela dance, and she seemed to approve.

By one-thirty in the morning on Boxing Day, most of the students had either drifted up to their dormitories or fallen asleep in the Common Room. Teddy was sitting in the corner of the sofa, Checkmate now curled in his lap and the girls - Ruthless, Victoire, and Marie - sprawled out in chairs nearby. Mistletoe was still flying around, but they were all letting it annoy other people.

"You should let Checkmate have kittens," Marie said. "Do you know how to take the Charm off?"

"I could find out," Teddy said.

"Bushy's her brother, so it has to be with some other cat, but Oggie's big enough now."

Ruthless drooped forward, laughing. "Yes, I can just see the symbolism of that. Well, Dad, see, we decided to let my cat impregnate Teddy's."

"It's rather unmanning, when you put it that way," Teddy said.

"'Rather unmanning'?" Ruthless laughed harder. "Teddy, you _need_ to quit the Fifi LaFolle." Teddy wondered what Phineas Nigellus would make of being mistaken for Fifi LaFolle. Ruthless finished up a bottle of butterbeer. "You should try some Zoltan Burr. He'll get you down to monosyllables pretty fast. While swearing in a gravelly voice and throwing curses at anyone in reach."

"Sounds healthy."

"Oh, not to worry, they're all certifiable Bad Guys." She raised her wand and said, " _Accio Wandpoint!_ " A paperback with a hairy, broad-chested wizard on the front flew downstairs. He was wearing a kilt and carrying the biggest wand Teddy had ever seen, and his long hair was being whipped by what appeared to be a hurricane, though the painting was sunlit. A witch in short robes was doing some sort of lightning spell in an inset in the lower right corner. Ruthless caught it and tossed it to him. "There. A good dose of Zoltan will cure what ails you."

Marie climbed onto the sofa back and looked over Teddy's shoulder and said, "Oo, he's cute."

"That's Nab MacLaren," Ruthless said. "Fearless defender of the highlands. And quite virile."

"Mm," Victoire said.

Teddy threw the book at Ruthless and laughed. "You know, the lot of you aren't helping me feel particularly manly just now."

"It's not our fault you don't have any Gryffindor boys to stay up with," Marie said, then looked at Victoire and Ruthless with mock seriousness. "He's right, though. We should stop talking about boys."

"You're right," Victoire said, and pulled out her wand. "It's time for manicures!"

Teddy pretended to scream and hid behind a cushion. "No, no!" He Conjured his Patronus. "Donzo! Maurice! Corky! There's a trio of witches after me and they WANT TO PAINT MY NAILS!"

Corky's bear came back: "Extreme force is justified."

This devolved into a hex war, starting with Teddy and Victoire against Ruthless and Marie, but growing to involve most of the Gryffindors who remained awake. By the time they were done, Teddy's ears were twitching madly, Ruthless was teetering on legs that had turned to stilts, and Victoire was lisping through an impressive set of fangs. Professor Longbottom sent up his own Patronus to tell them that it was time to go to bed; the portraits were complaining. Teddy headed for the boys' stairs, but stopped and went after the girls.

"Victoire?"

She turned. "Yeth?"

"Thanks for making me come down."

She shrugged. "Thankth for coming."

"I really did - "

"No, don't, Teddy." She looked over her shoulder, then said, "I know you think thith ith your fault. But you can't fikth it."

"I can try."

"You don't have to. It'th not your job."

"I feel like..."

"You thould talk to the Fat Friar or thomething."

"The Fat Friar?"

"You know, confeth."

"Why?"

"Why not? You confeth to everyone elth, and at leatht maybe he can help you." She stood on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek, the fangs pricking his skin almost pleasantly. "Happy Chrithmath, Teddy."

He kissed her back, accidentally catching the corner of her mouth, and said, "Happy Christmas, Victoire."

She bolted up the stairs.

He went back to his dormitory and looked at Phineas's diaries. Victoire might be right that he _couldn't_ fix things, but that didn't give him the right to stop trying. But it could wait until morning.

He left his door slightly ajar, so Checkmate could come back in when she wanted to, and went to sleep.

He dreamed of Sirius Black - Phineas's Sirius - standing near the park at Grimmauld Place, smiling, inviting him in, wiggling his house-elf ears and twitching his puppy nose.

"I know you," Teddy said.

The boy laughed. "Yes."

"Am I in the Maze?"

"No."

"Is Uncle Harry here?"

Sirius frowned. "Who?"

"Uncle Harry. My godfather. He lives near here."

"Oh. No. This is just for shapeshifters." He laughed again, then pulled in his puppy nose, making it thin and aristocratic. His eyes flashed purple and red before going back to gray, and his ears shrank down to human size. He looked at Teddy expectantly.

"What... what do you want me to be?"

"We can be anything."

"I just want to be me."

He shrugged, as if to say, "Suit yourself," then made a few subtle changes in his face and grew a foot, becoming his brother Phineas for a moment. His clothes changed with him, a dream-skill that Teddy envied, even though the real Sirius undoubtedly wouldn't have had it. He spun playfully and tipped a silk top hat, then shrank back to his normal size. "Let's go home."

Instead of heading into the park, he skipped out of it, now rolling a hoop with a stick, going toward Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place. Teddy followed him, though he was careful to walk. He didn't want anyone in the dream world to see him skipping. They reached Number Twelve almost immediately, though in reality it was a five minute walk. The bricks on the house were sharp and well-maintained, the garden perfectly manicured and suitable for Muggle view. It must have been the house as Phineas Nigellus and his brother would have known it. Sirius opened the door and beckoned.

Teddy took a step and found himself entering the parlor. Mum, Dad, and Sirius were all lounging in the chairs, taking no notice of him. Peter Pettigrew, fifteen years old, was sitting under a table, and James Potter was stretched out on the floor with a quill poised over a piece of parchment. A tall man in medieval robes stood by the window with his arms crossed. No pictures had survived of him, but this was how Teddy had imagined Banan the Black, the founder of the family, to look. Rita Skeeter was sitting on an ottoman, taking down notes ostentatiously. Donzo was standing outside, his face pressed against the window, though that would have been quite impossible in the real house. Fenrir Greyback and his moll, Mathilde Dubois, were locked in one of the Ministry's Werewolf Registry cages, but looked happy nonetheless. Professor McGonagall was standing in front of the fireplace, lecturing the group. She looked up when Teddy and Sirius came in, and said, "Ah, Mr. Lupin. A fine example of what I was saying about the tendency of shapeshifters to lose themselves. Mr. Lupin, can you even tell me who you are?"

"What?" Teddy asked.

"It's a simple enough question. I'm sure anyone else in the room can answer it. Mr. Black - either of you - please assist Mr. Lupin."

Both Siriuses got up and went to a cupboard which didn't exist in the real parlor. In fact, it was the wardrobe with the boggart that Dean was currently painting on the wall across from the Room of Requirement. The rest of the mural had been painted around it. The door opened to reveal the sea of blood from the Maze. In the distance, Teddy could see a rocky island emerging from the waves. On it was something that glimmered brilliantly in the tropical sunlight. Sirius - Phineas's Sirius - reached in and pulled out a single brown quill. He handed it to Teddy. The other Sirius shut the door.

"There," he said. "Simple, isn't it?"

Teddy stepped toward the wardrobe, but the Siriuses blocked him somberly.

"I need to go there," he said.

The younger Sirius - or the elder, if you were going by birth dates, Teddy supposed - shook his head and said, "The only way out is in." Then his face changed again, and he was Phineas, Phineas in oils on his canvas, and Teddy was with him there, standing in front of his finely carved chair. Teddy was also made of oils. He observed the way his arm moved, changing texture with the irregularities of the weave.

"The only way out is in," Phineas said. "And the only way in, is through."

"I don't understand."

Phineas gave him a shove toward the frame, and he tumbled through into another picture, this one Dean's unfinished portrait of McGonagall. She frowned at him and said, "Answer the question, Mr. Lupin."

"But I don't _know_."

"Then I suggest you find out." She turned her nose back up for the pose, and the painted world shrank. Teddy tumbled out of the painting and into his bed, where he woke up, panting. Checkmate had apparently come back in the night, as she scrambled away from his flailing hands and jumped up onto the foot board, back arched.

Teddy considered grabbing a quill and parchment and writing this dream down for Divination, then decided that he'd prefer _not_ to get Firenze's commentary on how little it all meant in the scheme of things, after all, that his parents hadn't acknowledged him and McGonagall had paraded him around as an example of shapeshifting gone wrong. The feather from the wardrobe - it was a hawk's feather, but he couldn't think how his lark of an experiment with Donzo could have anything to do with the Daedalus Maze, or the Quarantine. They could as easily have pulled Victoire's lip gloss out of the wardrobe, or his Muggles and Minions dice, and it would have made as much sense.

It was early morning - seven o'clock - and he couldn't hear anyone else in Gryffindor up and about after last night's late party. He was wide awake. He could think of any number of things to do. He had Ruthless's Zoltan Burr novel to read, or he could re-read a Fifi LaFolle. He could start his holiday homework (Professor Morse had given him a nasty essay in Potions). He could use Dad's ring to re-visit a more pleasant memory, in which his parents valued him, even if they didn't know him. He could tweak the Marauder's Map somehow. He could write a story for James.

He went to his desk and opened Phineas's journal.

At first, the entries seemed to be normal, or at least what Teddy would expect of wizards experimenting with a new magical invention. Phineas marveled at the chance to view the past. Royce spent a great deal of time extrapolating futures. Phineas, Dumbledore, and Burke all spent an evening making jokes about this behavior (Teddy suspected, both from the content of these jokes and the irregular handwriting in the journal, that large quantities of something had been consumed that evening). The others followed their own interests. Gradually, he began to sense, from no concrete evidence other than shorter entries, that Phineas wasn't being entirely forthright with the journal. Cryptic entries like, "Failed to identify" or "Disappointing conclusion to today's foray" were enough to tell him that Phineas was up to something concrete, but not enough to tell him what it was. The letters began to appear in the pages of the journal about halfway through. It was April, by the dates. The first was from Royce, and had been copied to all the members of the group.

 _My fine colleagues,  
While our findings using the Device have been of great value, I would be remiss not to express concern at recent occurrences. The appearance of the shadows in the normative world may well be harmless, as Arxcis suggests, but it is our duty to investigate the matter more thoroughly than has been our wont. I would not like to suggest that my own invention may have unpleasant unintended effects, but for my own peace of mind, I should like to study the shadows more carefully..._

He circled in slowly on his concern, and Teddy realized that the shadows he was speaking of weren't like the phantasms at Hogwarts - instead of visitors from the past, they would find the environment changed, something like the appearance of the fire-flower - but they were obviously a sort of leakage from the Maze. The others wanted to ignore it, because they were entranced with their studies. Royce pressed them, but there was no evidence in Phineas's journal, other than the letter itself, that anything was done. Several pages later, another letter, this one to Phineas personally, from Gordon Burke, was folded carefully into the record.

 _Nigellus,  
Please allay my fear that I alone am not suffering the recurring dreams mentioned by Regius and Calamus. You have always been the solid rock in this group, the one least likely to be carried away by phantoms. Young Apis remains entranced with his visions of Beauty (it must be dreadfully disappointing to return to his intended, who is unlikely to appear in such visions, if I may confide a personal opinion), and Ilustrus seems quite obsessed with his puzzles and problems of Identity. You, however, study Thought, the Mystery with the lowest degree of temperature in the soul. Surely, you haven't joined the madness? I ask only because you seem distant, and I remain,  
your concerned friend,  
Arxcis_

After this letter, the truly cryptic entries began. "R" - Regius, Teddy supposed - became cold to the touch, and shivered even in the sunshine. "X" - probably "Arxcis," as Apis was fondly called "A" - was looking for one bauble or another. Maurice would undoubtedly shrug and say, "Whatever the thing was, it's probably sitting in the damnable shop as we speak." Apis himself was exalted with his study of beauty, and wrote several rhapsodic poems on the subject, which Phineas dutifully kept. One of them wasn't even terrible. Even with the background, Teddy couldn't follow all of it. He turned a page in June, and suddenly the pages were full again.

 _Though I have sided consistently with Arxcis in the matter of Regius's Maze, I fear I have followed its paths too long, and I am coming to believe Regius's warnings. These have had little effect on any of us, of course, but I know I am not the only one using it for purposes other than knowledge. Apis is besotted with his visions, but at least he has made himself happy, moreso than he would be with the shrew who is his intended, so perhaps he needs the escape. Ilustrus has become like Narcissus, staring endlessly into his mirrors. Calamus fears taking any action, as he has seen how they reverberate through Time. Even Arxcis, who insists that he is unaffected, seems caught in the pull of the ancients._

 _And I, who have prided myself always on my rationality and good sense, came near to murder today._

 _I do not exaggerate, nor am I misinterpreting my own motivations. I have sought through the Maze, studied not the dry workings of Thought, but the passionate, burning workings of Love. Not my love for Ursula, which is quite real and also quite sensible - she is an ideal helpmeet to me. The Love which has consumed me is a child's love for his brother, a man's love for a child who never reached the fullness of his years. In this love, I sought a certain driver of a hansom cab. I searched the Maze until I was able to see and know his face. I followed him. And I found him. My intention was to do murder to avenge my brother's death. But he is an old man now, sickly and weak, and he may not remember the child he once ran down. He may not have noticed._

 _I held my wand steady, and stared at him through the window, this man who stole my childhood companion and forced me into the position of heir. Something stayed my hand - be it my own blessed sanity returning or the hand of an angel, I care not. The red fog left me, and I left the man to die in his own way and at his own time. In this moment, a veil was lifted from me, and I understood the twisted path I had followed to that place, and I believe that the Maze led me along it, through no fault of mine or its. It is a rickety wooden bridge that we've constructed over the Great Abyss, and I believe all of us may be in danger of falling from it._

 _Were I to return to the beginning, I would advise greater caution, but I fear we have already changed the world around us, and it is our responsibility as gentlewizards to repair that which we have wrought._

Phineas made short but more informative entries over the next month, as he convinced his friends that they needed to shut down whatever the Daedalus Maze was doing. Most of them agreed that they needed to stop using it, but Phineas reported no change in their dreams or in the manifestations in the real world. Only Dumbledore's father seemed reluctant to stop using it, but then, he was studying Beauty, which, at worst, kept him besotted. Teddy suspected that was how he used it in Azkaban, to surround himself with great beauty in the ugliest of places. But it was Percival who finally understood, Percival who insisted that they could not repair the damage without going further. _Apis claims_ , Phineas wrote, _that there is only one goal to a Maze, and that is to reach the center. The Maze, he thinks, will continue to operate until this goal is achieved. That this is madness does not, of course, deter him. He was a Gryffindor._

There was a tiny piece of white paper jammed up against the spine, and Teddy pried it free with his fingernail. It was the corner of a note. Teddy flipped back and found the note that had fallen out. Its corner had broken off, and it matched the spare piece perfectly.  
 _N,  
The only way out is in.  
A_

Teddy stared at this note from another century for a long time.

Then he opened his wardrobe and got out the Daedalus Maze.


	20. Guides and Guards

**Chapter 20:**

 **Guides and Guards**

He landed on the deck of the ship, the bloody sea raging beneath him. Crouching in front of him on all fours was Bellatrix Lestrange, smiling, her tongue flicking obscenely over her front teeth. She lunged at him, her claw-like fingers outstretched, and he barely had time to gather himself enough to jump back.

She laughed.

Teddy fell forward and clawed for purchase on the crazily slanting, wet deck with one hand, the other clutching Ariadne's Thread. He found a grip and scrambled upward. He could hear Bellatrix behind him, laughing into the gale. The ship pitched forward and threw him along the boards, sending him to a shuddering stop against the stairs that led to a higher deck. Bellatrix's laugher became a howl, and Teddy didn't have to look over his shoulder to see that she had become Greyback, in wolf form, crouched for another leap at him.

He grabbed the railing and dragged himself up the stairs. The wolf scratched at the bottom even as he reached the top.

The top.

He looked up. The crow's nest was empty, the route to it clear.

He ran for it, letting the ship pitch as it would, using the lessons Dudley Dursley had taught him two years ago to keep his balance. Finally, he reached the rope ladder and began to climb. The werewolf reached it and shook it violently, but he couldn't climb.

Teddy reached the crow's nest and threw himself to the floor, shutting the trapdoor that the ladder came through. He'd figure out later how to get down, if he needed to. The werewolf crashed into it three times before falling down with a yelp. Teddy watched him crash to the deck, where he began to pace at the bottom of the mast.

A spyglass rolled over his feet, and he caught it just before a roll of the ship threw it down. He wasn't sure what he thought it would show him here - nothing here was real - but he looked through it just the same.

From the height, even without the aid, he could see the shape of the Maze, etched in black rocks that jutted out of the blood-water. He raised the spyglass and searched for the center. Far in the distance, he could see it: a larger rock, the largest, rising up from the waves like the grasping hand of a drowning man. On it, something he couldn't quite see glimmered, and he thought, _That's it. That's what I need._

Then there was a great crack of timber, and Teddy was thrown headlong over the side of the crow's nest toward the gaping jaws of the werewolf. He curled his fingers around Ariadne's Thread and yelled, "Home!"

The Maze cast him out into his dormitory. His hands were streaked with gore from grabbing the deck, but he just wiped them absently on the bottom of his robes.

Somehow, he'd got the Maze stuck in his island/ocean fantasy, but he didn't that mattered the most. It could be a dark forest or an urban jungle; it would be the same problem - he was at the edge and needed to get to the center. But instead of guiding him, the Guides were blocking his way, even attacking him. And at the center... what? Something glowing. The Iridescent Irises that Madam Pomfrey ought to have used in the potion? Something that could turn off the Quarantine? Something more personal?

He scrambled for a notebook and wrote down the questions. First - the guides. Why Bellatrix and Greyback? The woman who'd killed Mum, and the man Teddy himself had killed. He paused his quill under that, then, without thinking about why, scribbled it out and wrote, _Who are they, really?_

He had no answer. He pressed his fists against his temples and waited for the dull thudding to stop.

He returned to Phineas's journals several times over the following days, as Christmas holidays drew to a close. The Unspeakables had done _something_ , but the journals weren't clear what. They'd gone _in_ , whatever that meant. Teddy was under the impression that they'd done it together, but that was hardly anything he could do in his own situation. He didn't have other Unspeakables, or the Marauders (except in dreams that refused to come), or Dumbledore's Army. He had his friends, of course, but they weren't mixed up in the Maze.

After they'd done something - Phineas had noted this only with, "Success" - they'd all resigned from their employment at the Ministry, and there had been a great deal of debate about destroying the Maze. Phineas had held out for its destruction, but Percival Dumbledore and Gordon Burke had prevailed. Dedalus Royce, who had contracted some sort of illness, took it into his personal possession, and after that, it faded from Phineas's journals - now concerned with his career, his marriage, and his children (he reported on them dryly, but Teddy sensed deep affection under the surface) - until the arrest of Dumbledore, at which point, an obviously disturbed Phineas had written, _Apis has gone quite mad. He has spoken to me of the circumstances of his crime, but bound me to silence in the matter. And now he has demanded Dedalus's dangerous toy, to have with him at Azkaban. So while his wife and children try to recover from this horrendous blow, he loses himself in the depths of the Mysteries. His eldest, Albus, has created his own escapes - the boy is as dangerously bright as Apis and as ambitious as Kendra - but the younger boy, Aberforth, is left with a father's responsibility even before he has reached the age to begin school. I should like to raise those Muggle ruffians from their just graves long enough to kill them a second time for the destruction they have wrought upon this family, but now it is Apis himself who angers me. He has escaped Azkaban in the only manner possible and, in so doing, has permanently abandoned his sons, his wife, and his ruined daughter._

Teddy found himself judging Percival more generously. It wasn't like he could have actually escaped Azkaban at the time, and if the Maze made it more livable, then perhaps it was fair to turn to it, and Phineas's horror of the Maze was closer to panicky fear than it was to moral indignation.

Classes began again early in January. It seemed less momentous than usual, as no one had been away, including the teachers, though they'd kept themselves scarce. Professor McGonagall seemed so natural in the Transfiguration classroom (possibly because Teddy had lived with her in that capacity in Mum and Dad's memories, as well as in Uncle Harry's stories) that he thought it would seem strange when Gardner came back. Firenze had resigned himself to teaching the Ministry curriculum for Divination, at least for O.W.L. year students, though he made no effort to hide his disdain. Daniel was constantly in the potions workroom now, with someone magically adjusting fires and doing any necessary spells, trying to find the right combination of ingredients to make an effective potion for Blistering Bloodspots. "It would be a lot easier," he told Teddy when it was his turn to watch the fire, "if I had the faintest notion what Iridescent Irises are, or why they would have different properties than the regular sort." Teddy helped him look at different things in the microscope, including some of Tinny's blood. Teddy couldn't make kettles or cauldrons of what he was seeing, but Daniel pointed out all of the things that were normal, then showed him what looked like a black thread going through it all.

"It's not a parasite or a virus or bacteria," he said. "I think we're looking at some sort of Curse effect in the plasma, but I've no idea how to get to it."

Teddy nodded sagely, then helped him administer drops of potion to vials with blood from each of the sick students. None showed any improvement. As Teddy left, he heard Daniel sigh to Professor Morse, who was hugging him kindly, "We need to break the Quarantine and get help."

 _The only way out is in._

But Teddy hadn't come up with any brilliant new ideas about that, either. Miserably, he trudged up to the seventh floor, thinking he might try to bring Phineas's portrait back to the Room of Requirement to see if it had anything else to say, or perhaps just to talk to it for a little while. When he got there, Dean was back at work on his mural, which was taking its final shapes before painting. Dad was the most lifelike of the figures, though young Uncle Harry was also very well drawn, and young Professor Longbottom, who was in the center with Dad, looked very nervous indeed. Dean had drawn himself far down in the corner, looking on. He had a paintbrush instead of a wand.

"The paintbrush isn't going to help much against a boggart," Teddy said.

Dean looked over his shoulder and shrugged. "Just an artistic touch."

It didn't seem worth the effort to point out that Dad standing between a wandless Dean and a monster wasn't an entirely cheerful thought, as it clearly hadn't occurred to Dean, so Teddy didn't say anything. He could just go into the Room of Requirement - Dean wouldn't mind - but he didn't have anything pressing to do there, and it was soothing to watch the mural take shape. The boggart was concentrating on Dean, and it had turned into a hulking figure in black robes. Teddy guessed he was one of the Snatchers who'd caught Dean during the war.

"How is Professor McGonagall's portrait coming along?" he asked.

"Oh, it's finished," Dean said. "Though I sincerely hope it isn't active for some time. I collected the last of the memories she cares to add over holidays."

"What do you do with them?"

"I mix them into the paints, along with the oils. And when she - passes - the _Imago Vivere_ spell wakes them up."

"Could you mix them into a painting that already existed?"

"I don't think so." Dean filled in a bit of detail on Parvati Patil's hair, then said, "Is there something you need, Teddy?"

Teddy looked at the drawing of Dad, who was laughing again as Dean's Snatcher suddenly did a pratfall. He wanted the Marauders suddenly and badly - not as they would be now, had they lived, but as they had been in school. They'd have figured this out already.

"Teddy?" Dean put away his charcoal and sat down at an awkward distance. "Is this still about the Quarantine?"

Teddy shrugged.

"I don't mean to presume, but I reckon I owe it to your dad to help if I can..."

"I don't think you can," Teddy said quickly.

Dean nodded. His eyes scanned the picture of frightened third years. "I was always in awe of Harry a little bit," he said. "Seamus was probably my best friend. Parvati was always good for listening when things got out of hand. Lavender - "

"I've met Lavender. She helped me earlier. She's working for Fifi LaFolle now."

"Is she?" Dean grinned fondly. "That's Lavender for you. Soft moonlit nights and horrid poetry were always her thing."

Teddy let his eyes linger over each of the other Gryffindors as Dean named them. They'd never been in Uncle Harry's closest group, but he knew their names. Now, they seemed to have their own little system of relationships.

 _I've got your back._

He blinked and sat up straight.

He hadn't thought about what Ruthless had said to him since she'd said it, because when it came to the Maze, there was no defense to be had. But it wasn't _defense_ he needed. It wasn't even the Maze itself. He needed to get past the circles he'd been thinking in, to get fresh ideas and fresh eyes. That was what he wanted the Marauders so badly for, what he always wanted to turn to them for. But Dean's little group had functioned on its own, outside the circles Teddy knew. And Teddy had friends outside the circle of the Maze and his family.

He stood up. "Thanks, Dean," he said.

"For what?"

"Just... thanks."

He started to turn toward Gryffindor, but Ravenclaw was closer. On his way to the door knocker, he sent his Patronus back for Ruthless and Victoire, and, on a whim, sent a second one to Maurice and Corky (he was not prepared to include Honoria in this, going out with Corky or not), and a third to Frankie.

The doorknocker asked him a simple question - how the soul maintained identity during the act of Disapparition - but he wasn't patient enough to answer it. Instead, he caught a Ravenclaw first year on the way in, and asked him to send Donzo out.

Then he sat in the corridor and waited.

It took ten minutes for everyone to arrive, and once they got there, Teddy wasn't entirely sure how to start. In lieu of an explanation, he led them to the Room of Requirement, thinking, "I need their help" as he passed the door three times. It opened into a comfortable sitting room, with low ottomans to sit on, a large table with blank parchment and a bottle of ink, as well as one quill for each person Teddy had brought along. A section of shelves held all of the reference books Teddy had thought to use so far, as well as Phineas's diaries and, for some reason, the Animagus books. To his delight, a picture of the Marauders that Dad had saved and Granny had given him also appeared on the table. They were in their dormitory making obscene gestures at each other.

There were other pictures on the table and on the walls. Mum and her friends showed up in a drawing that usually hung in the Hufflepuff Common Room. Uncle Harry and Ron and Hermione at some point the year after the war, when Hermione had taken her N.E.W.T.s. One of a group of girls with their hair in stiff nineteen-forties styles, in the company of a single boy. One of them was Minerva McGonagall; Teddy didn't recognize the others, though he knew that the lone boy was Alphard Black. There was a snapshot of two people that he realized with a start were Granny and Granddad, surrounded by other students in the library. Beyond these faces, there were others, complete strangers: A gang of boys in pinstriped Muggle suits, smoking cigars by the lake. A Hufflepuff Quidditch team grinning up from a table in the Common Room. Several daredevils standing up on their broomsticks and doing some kind of complicated dance over the lake. A rotting piece of parchment scribbled over in Latin, with seven inky handprints on it. A code-breaker that looked like it had once been made by first-years. They seemed to go on forever, these shadows of Hogwarts societies. Teddy could sense them all around him; it was an oddly comforting feeling. The Room of Requirement, at least, seemed to approve.

"I need the Daedalus Maze," he said, and it was on the table.

The others gathered around. Ruthless leaned forward across the table to Teddy's right. Victoire perched on a stool that had appeared for her on the far side. Maurice took one of the ottomans and raised an eyebrow quizzically. Corky and Donzo took the other sides of the table.

Frankie spoke first. "That's that bloody thing my mum gave you. From the Department of Mysteries."

Teddy nodded. "I'm not sure the Department would think much of what I'm about to do."

"In that case," Frankie said, grinning, "let's get to it."

Teddy took a deep breath, then started at the beginning of his story, from looking for Brimmann to the horrible night after the fight with Uncle Harry - though he didn't elaborate on what that had been about - to the insane visions inside of it now.

"I know that it's in there somewhere," he finished. "The way out of all of it, I mean. The Quarantine, the plague. But I don't know how."

"Could we get it to push out some Iridescent Irises?" Victoire asked. "It gave us the Congolese Fireflower."

"That's what I was thinking," Teddy said. "But I can't really control what it decides to leak, and it might let something worse out along with it. We're lucky Brimmann hasn't come back."

"Maybe it could show us a way out," Frankie suggested. "The only way out is in, right? Maybe there's a way out of the Chamber of Secrets - go all the way into the deepest part of the school. Maybe there's something the Quarantine missed."

"That's true," Donzo said. "Whoever put the Quarantine on might not have known about the Chamber."

"And it's open now," Victoire put in. "They've been studying it in the summers."

"The Chamber of Secrets is under the lake," Ruthless said. "I'm willing to wager that they've tried any way there is to get out through the water."

"But we could - "

Corky stood up. He'd got huge over the years, and he had a way of making people quiet down. "Let's not get stuck on it. We need a blackboard." One was behind him. "And chalk." It lay in the small shelf at the bottom. He picked it up and wrote. _1\. Chamber of Secrets. 2._ "Next idea? Even if it's stupid."

"Forbidden Forest," Frankie tried. "Not that I'm hot to start that again, but we do know our way around."

Corky wrote this down. "Next? Someone other than Apcarne." He pointed at Ruthless.

She looked trapped, then muttered, "I don't know. Punch someone. Maybe the bloke who made this stupid Quarantine."

There was general snickering, but Corky dutifully wrote down, _Do violence to someone._ He looked to Donzo.

"Break the Quarantine spell," Donzo said. "That would pretty much fix everything, since we can cure the plague."

"Or it could let the plague out," Victoire said. "That's what the Quarantine is for in the first place. What if it lifted and all of these leaks got out in the rest of the world?"

"And a cheerful thought from Weasley," Corky muttered, and wrote down both the idea and the drawback.

"So we have to think about fixing the Maze _and_ the Quarantine," Maurice said. "But once we get the Quarantine lifted, maybe someone who understands it will know what to do."

"Do you know anyone who understands it?" Corky asked.

Teddy frowned. "Do you have any old family papers from Gordon Burke?"

"Who?"

"He helped make it."

"That explains its charming properties." Maurice shrugged. "I don't mean to be practical and dull in my ideas, but let's play with what Scrimgeour said. If it can show you the past, have you thought about using it to find out who set the Quarantine and how? If we knew that, we could break it. With or without violence."

"But what about - ?"

"One thing at a time," Corky said, and scribbled this idea down. He expanded the blackboard upward (his handwriting was large), then tapped it. "Can we do that?" he asked. "It seems more doable than solving problems in something we don't understand, and if we did..." He wrote, _Help from outside. Burkes?_

"Help and Burkes. Those are two bizarrely juxtaposed concepts," Maurice said.

"What do you think, Lupin?" Donzo asked, easily taking the lead away from Corky. "Would it work? I mean, it didn't really show you what happened to Brimmann."

Teddy blinked. "It did, though," he said. "I wasn't paying attention, because it was showing me everything else at the same time, but I've known it since I broke it. His ship went down off of Portugal. About forty miles west of Lisbon. He was going to go in and infect the city."

"You know that and you haven't told Robards?" Maurice said. "A week with no Trace! Teddy!"

"I'm sorry. I wasn't really thinking about the game anymore."

"How are you going to control it?" Victoire asked. "It sounds like it's gone crazy since then, and it's stuck."

Frankie sat forward. "Go in together. Didn't you say Mum took you in the first time?" Teddy nodded. "Then it can be done. It would probably still be crazy in there, but it might be a different kind of crazy. Something safer."

Ruthless suddenly laughed. "Go with Weasley," she suggested. "It'll just be crazily clean."

Victoire stuck out her tongue. "Or you could take Scrimgeour, and just curse everything into oblivion."

Donzo shook his head. "Take Atkinson. He's the most normal person here."

"Except for his odd fixation on The Evil One," Maurice said.

Corky rolled his eyes. "We all have our weaknesses. I'll go if you want me to, Teddy."

Teddy considered it. It would end up being some environment and guide that he shared with Corky, and most of what he could think of was pretty innocuous, even if it went crazy. On the other hand, when Draco Malfoy had come to class, he'd said that he couldn't get a read on Corky - what if there was something there that no one knew about? The Maze would show it, and play with it in its current state.

"Why stay at two?" Ruthless asked. "We could all go in. Balance each other's crazies out."

"Someone should stay back," Donzo said, looking at her suspiciously.

"And do what? Watch a wooden box sit on the table and hope it spits you all back in one piece?"

This all seemed to be spinning out of control. Teddy had meant to ask their help in _thinking_ around the question. He hadn't meant for them to start mucking around in the Maze itself. He started to shake his head and pull the Maze away from them, then his eyes fell on the picture of the Marauders. They'd chanced things together.

"I need to think about this," he said. "I've cocked this up already doing things without thinking. But... can we talk again tomorrow?"

"No, Lupin," Ruthless said. "I was headed off to the Yukon, and Weasley has a meeting with the Queen."

Teddy smiled. "All right, then," he said. "Tomorrow, after supper. Not in here, though - I don't know how the magic would work together."

"Where, then?" Donzo asked.

Victoire came up with it. "Trelawney's classroom. She's stuck in Hogsmeade, and no one has any reason to go up there. We'd have it to ourselves."

"And maybe all those Divination things would come in handy," Corky said.

Maurice shrugged. "At the very least, there's tea."

"Well, that settles it," Teddy said. "Trelawney's, it is."

After that, there didn't seem to be much to say, though they stayed in the Room of Requirement for another half hour, looking at the old pictures and making up stories about the ones they didn't recognize.

Later that night, alone in his dormitory, Teddy took out his father's wedding ring and followed the Marauders on a summer night's quest to acquire bellweed for Mrs. Potter as a surprise, since she'd been muttering about how she'd have to find time to go harvest it. Dad had - quite unusually - taken the lead, spinning the whole thing into a story that they'd happily played along with. Teddy fell asleep with this memory still going on, and it slipped into a dream, in which he and Mum joined them, and they were hunting Snorkacks together to give to Luna Scamander.

He knew what his decision would be long before he set off for the Divination classroom late the next afternoon.

He got to the north tower before any of his friends and opened the trapdoor in the ceiling. The rope ladder automatically came down and he climbed it, going up into the dusty, circular room, which he hadn't been in since the Quarantine had fallen in November. He hadn't generally cared for his Divination lessons with Trelawney, and her room always smelled like a vat of decomposing flowers, but now, months empty, the smell had faded back to something nearly pleasant - a memory of a sunny day in the garden, or the greenhouses after summer term cleaning - and the winter moonlight (Teddy noted absently to himself that he'd need to start the January Wolfsbane brewing soon) cast everything in a pretty silver light. The crystal balls along the wall shone like small moons themselves, and Trelawney's soft, puffy chairs and theatrical-looking draperies seemed, for once, to make the room more like a parlor than a classroom. There was a cracked crystal ball in a specially-built niche on the new wall (half of the tower wall had been knocked away in the Battle of Hogwarts), and Teddy knew it was the one she'd used to brain Fenrir Greyback. He'd wondered morbidly on other occasions what he might See in that particular crystal ball, but it didn't hold any temptation for him tonight.

"Ah, Teddy Lupin."

He jumped. The Fat Friar was sliding up through the floor slowly, and seemed cut at the knees.

"Brother Francis!" Teddy said. "You frightened me."

The Friar looked pained. "I do apologize. I fear I have no ability to knock before arriving."

"It's all right. I just wasn't expecting you. Were you looking for me?"

"No. I simply rather like this room when it's quiet. I miss Professor Trelawney, though. Her conversation is often... interesting."

"You ghosts are stuck here, too, aren't you?"

"Well, yes, but we House ghosts are quite attached to our charges, and don't desire to leave, at any rate."

"Nearly Headless Nick liked going to see Fifi LaFolle."

"Yes, well, Sir Nicholas has always had a weakness for the fairer sex, and it has not lessened in his years as a wraith." The Friar finished his ascent and floated over to the window, looking down on the ground beneath the north battlements, where Mum and Dad had died (Teddy avoided this window in most of his visits to the classroom). "Teddy," he said quietly after a while, "there is talk of your state of mind. Concerns from adults. I hear a great deal, and see more than you suspect. You're bearing a heavy burden."

"I'm asking my friends for help."

The Friar nodded. "I'm glad to hear that. But your burden is more than the task you've set yourself."

"But that's enough to be getting on with, for now."

"I see." The Friar waited a moment, then carefully said, "The rest of your burden, Teddy - you don't have to carry it alone. You can ask for help. I am bound not to share your secrets." He touched his rosary.

Teddy shook his head. "I'm not really religious. And when I am, I'm... well, Granny's Protestant. So's my godfather. They're not really religious either."

The Friar looked like he was inclined to go on, but the ladder slid against the trapdoor, and Ruthless called up. "Lupin? Is that you, or am I going to walk in on Filch and Pince doing things that will scar me for life if I see it?"

The Friar smiled and left through the wall.

"It's me!" Teddy called. "But it would have served you right if it was Filch and Pince."

Ruthless pulled herself into the room and looked around. "Hmm. I never did take Divination. Interesting room." She started to wander around the walls and look at the rows of teapots and crystal balls. She picked one up and tossed it to Teddy. "Tell me my future, oh Great Seer."

Teddy pretended to peer into the ball. "I see you... being happy. And a very famous Auror."

"Do those two things mix?"

"Oh, with you, absolutely."

"And what about you?"

"If I could see where I was going, we wouldn't be in this mess."

"Not a very useful skill, then."

"It makes the ability to change my hair color look vital."

Ruthless finished her inspection of the walls and pulled out a poof to sit on. "Which reminds me, you aren't morphing - "

Teddy cut off that conversation by turning his hair bright purple and making his ears grow six inches and form points. On an impulse, he leaned over and kissed her forehead.

"I like it," she said. "It's a good look for you."

Teddy rolled his eyes and undid the morph.

The others arrived together a few minutes later, Victoire fuming because Ruthless and Teddy had both left the Great Hall without her. "Really, I was waiting for someone to say it was time to leave!"

"Which I did," Donzo pointed out.

Victoire took a seat comfortably near Trelawney's desk - Teddy guessed it was her seat for class, when Trelawney was teaching - and the others pulled the chairs into a rough circle. Teddy put the Maze in the center.

Corky looked around. "Well, we've got seven. Lucky number."

"I always preferred nine," Victoire said dreamily, trying to look like Trelawney at her airiest. She succeeded in looking ethereally beautiful in the starlight; Teddy shook his head sharply and lit the torches on the walls. Judging by the other boys' expressions, he didn't think he was the only one who'd been momentarily struck by some remnant of Veela in Victoire's face.

"What's the call, Teddy?" Frankie asked.

"We go together," Teddy said. "I don't know if it'll work or not, but it makes as much sense as anything else I've tried."

"Is someone staying behind?"

"No," Corky said. Teddy looked at him, and he shrugged sheepishly. "Okay, I wasn't really joking. Seven's luckier than six. I'll just shut up now."

"It does have Arithmantic properties," Donzo said tentatively.

Teddy thought of Voldemort and his seven Horcruxes, and shuddered. But he'd chosen that number because it was powerful. And Teddy had chosen it accidentally. He hoped it wasn't a bad sign to think about Voldemort before doing something potentially very stupid.

"We're all going," he said. "I can't think what good it would do to have someone stay behind. I have Ariadne's Thread" - he produced it from his book bag - "so we can get out, as long as we stay together."

"Oh, I thought I'd wander off in the midst of a dangerous spell," Maurice said.

"I don't know what it's going to do," Teddy told him. "We could end up in the middle of a maelstrom at sea and get _blown_ apart. We could fall over something and end up in totally different Mazes."

"What if that happens?" Frankie asked.

"Everyone remember every direction you go. Stop if you can't. Go back to the beginning, wherever it is, and _wait there_." Teddy bit his lip. "You don't have to do this. I'm perfectly happy to go with lucky three, or lucky two."

Maurice arched an eyebrow. "Exactly which of us do you think is going to back out?"

Teddy looked at them around him. Maurice, compact and nearly coiled, like a snake ready to jump. Corky, powerful and steady. Donzo, leaning forward, almost eager. Victoire, her face set tightly, as it had been on the night she'd faced Greyback with him. Frankie, a grown man with a strength earned from his own temptation. Ruthless, burning like a bonfire in the night. He shook his head. "I can't imagine any of you backing out."

"It's a miracle," Victoire said. "He can be taught."

They all laughed, and the momentary image of them as iconic broke. Frankie sat down easily and said, "Before we go in, we'll need to know at least a little bit of what we should expect, and what we should be looking for."

Teddy nodded. "Right. First, we all have to agree that we're looking to find out how the Quarantine was placed. There's no spell. It's just holding it in your mind." They all nodded. Teddy went on. "Second, nothing you see is real. Not _really_ real. You might see people you've lost, or who've been dead for a long time. It's not really them. It's not a ghost. It's... well, it's more like images that live in your head. Sometimes, they might be strange."

"Only sometimes?" Maurice asked.

"Well," Corky said, "the ones who come out of your head will always be strange."

"I mean, it could just be the way you see someone. It's not necessarily what the person is like. So I might see Victoire with a handful of knives."

Victoire laughed shrilly.

"Is there any way to prevent someone from showing up?" Maurice asked, then smiled nervously. "I mean, it's sort of personal how we see each other, isn't it?"

"I don't know if there's a way," Teddy said. "I don't think so. But we're all going to be in there, so I don't think we'll really run into ourselves. More likely someone we all share. Maddie and I saw my mum first. Or someone who's related to what we're looking for. I hope that's what it turns out to be." He took a deep breath. "This is really important: Don't touch them. That's how I broke it in the first place, and even if you don't touch them quite as - much - as I did, it'll hurt."

"Can you use magic on them?" Donzo asked.

"I don't know. Let's not try to find out."

Donzo nodded.

"So, how do we do this?" Ruthless asked, and reached out to put one hand on the Maze.

Teddy didn't think that it was necessary to touch the Maze, but something about it seemed right nonetheless. He put his left hand on the Maze, and raised his wand with his right as the others all put their hands out to touch it. As soon as Maurice had found a place to put his hand, Teddy said, " _Sulci Numine._ "


	21. Sulci Numine

**Chapter 21:**

 _ **Sulci Numine**_

"It's the Forbidden Forest," Frankie said.

Whether it had been the Forest all along - the group had started out as the Forest Guard, after all, devoted to exploring it - or if it formed when Frankie identified it, Teddy couldn't have said with any certainty. It had struck him as dark and windy, with tall shadows that might have been trees, but he wasn't sure.

Now, though, Frankie was right. They were standing under the eaves of the Forbidden Forest, just beyond the point where you could see Hagrid's cabin easily. As he watched, the forms solidified, the ground spreading out around his friends' feet. Teddy could see the vague shape of a maze twisting back away from them, but it wasn't as obvious as some. He wasn't sure the others could see it at all. The wind rattled the leaves, and he could smell an approaching storm, the sort that would bring hail and ear-splitting lightning.

Victoire looked around nervously. "Teddy, why are you clothes different?"

Teddy, who'd never really paid attention to his clothes in the Maze, looked down to find himself in worn and tattered robes with patches on the elbows. Dad's, he supposed, though they were an older style than Dad would have worn. He shrugged. Victoire was actually the only one of them still in her neat school robes. Ruthless was in her glasses again, though she'd been without them when they entered the Maze, and was wearing an ill-fitting jumper over faded blue jeans. Maurice was in green dress robes. Corky had on a heavy winter coat over his jeans. Donzo was wearing what he'd worn in the mirror in the Room of Requirement - jeans, with a jacket over a tee shirt. He was also in glasses, his hair neatly tied back. Frankie seemed to have gained back all of his childhood pudginess, and was wearing a loud flowered shirt over knee-length shorts.

Ruthless looked down at herself and brushed at the jumper in disgust. "Oh, _please!_ " As Teddy watched, the jumper became her Quidditch robes. She seemed more satisfied with this. A few of the others appeared to contemplate trying this, but ultimately, no one else did.

"Is there some reason that path is glowing?" Maurice asked.

Teddy looked in the direction he was pointing. The path to Uncle Harry's clearing was, indeed, glimmering softly. He was fumbling for an answer when Frankie said, in an oddly strained voice, "That goes where Teddy and Tinny and I almost died in that fire. The year I went a bit mad."

"Oh, yes," Donzo said. "I have a vague memory of that."

"I wasn't there," Victoire said.

"Can you see the path?" Donzo asked. "Just curious."

"Yes."

Maurice laughed. "Are you taking notes, Don?"

"Dear God," Ruthless said. "Nobody think about a quill."

Teddy let them continue the nervous chatter. He went to Frankie, who wasn't participating.

"Do you think it's down there?" he asked, nervous suddenly about what he knew was in that clearing, about the secret much bigger than the Maze that he knew he was meant to keep. "Whatever it is?"

Frankie sighed. "I don't know."

"There's something else there," Teddy told him, in the hope that "something" would explain anything they happened across. "I... well, I can't say what; Uncle Harry wouldn't want me to. But you weren't crazy. There was something there."

He nodded. "Thanks. I think that's just lit up because we're thinking about it, though. Unless the thing is the nexus of everything that happens at Hogwarts, of course."

"I don't think so. It wasn't always there. And I hope not, since we wouldn't be able to get through Uncle Harry's spells to get back in."

Frankie looked at him for a long time, then said, "You saved my arse that day, Teddy."

"I, well..."

"And I have complete faith in you."

"Then you're way ahead of me on this."

"I know. That's why I thought you needed to hear it." Frankie shook his head. "So where's our guide?"

"There!" Corky said. "Look. I'm blaming the two of you for it, too."

There was a grunt, and Teddy looked down to see a Red Cap, its club raised, blood dripping from behind its ears. It grinned obscenely. He'd been attacked twice by Red Caps during his first year, before the adults had decided to clear them out, but he would have sworn that he hadn't thought about them since. Now, though, a twist of cold fear went through him as he remembered them swarming over him.

"Not to be technical," Victoire said thinly, "but what do we do with a Red Cap?"

"Nothing," Ruthless said. "It's not really a Red Cap."

"Teddy said the others attacked him." Victoire looked anxiously at Teddy, who nodded reluctantly. "So what do we do?"

"It's a Guide," Maurice said. "We follow it."

This seemed a logical idea - there was no reason to be in the Maze if they were just to stand around at the entrance - but still, he hesitated. It had all seemed like a very good idea before they were here, but what would they see together? Would they suddenly round a turn and find Victoire and Ruthless on the deck of the ship? Would they see the werewolf, or the murderess? And what would they bring to it?

But it was too late to turn back now.

He nodded. "All right. But remember - stay together, and stay focused on the question. The Guide will probably change. Watch for things off to the side. We don't know what will be useful." He looked at the Red Cap. "We just need to find the source of the Quarantine."

The Red Cap swung its club forcefully, then ran down the shining path. Frankie and Teddy glanced at each other nervously.

They followed.

The Red Cap stopped at the first passage and waited for them. The Maze-shape was becoming clearer as creeper vines and ivy started to twist up between the trees. The Red Cap began to stretch and grow wispy gray hair. Its cap faded into an inexpensive wizard's hat, and its club became a wand.

"It's Borgin!" Maurice announced, sounding utterly disgusted. "Nice toy, Lupin."

"I doubt he came out of _Teddy's_ head," Corky said.

Borgin beckoned directly to Maurice. Maurice stared at it defiantly.

Donzo went over to him and said, quietly, "It's a guide, Moe. Follow it."

Maurice grimaced and muttered, "All right."

Teddy expected them to continue down the original path, which was still glowing softly in the shadows, but Borgin smiled wickedly and turned left, down a twisting path they could barely see on. They followed it until the old path seemed like a memory of a sunny day, then Victoire said, "Wait."

Teddy stopped, and touched Ruthless's shoulder to the same. She sent the signal on to Donzo, and a moment later, everyone was gathered. Borgin, who'd got younger as they walked, glared at them impatiently.

"Light," Victoire said. She closed her eyes and bent down, feeling along the ground. Something cylindrical appeared, and she raised it. A torch. "Fire," she whispered. It lit.

"That was just lucky," Corky said. "You could have set the whole Forest going."

Victoire opened her eyes. "I didn't think of that."

"And it didn't happen," Frankie said. "And now we have some light. Good job, Victoire. Though I'm guessing the rest of us better not try it, now that we're thinking about forest fires."

Teddy shook his head. "In here, the fire would probably just block our way." He held out his hand, and Victoire handed him the torch. He didn't recognize this place in the forest. It was purely the Maze now. He peered back in the direction they'd come. There was nothing but the shadowy path. In the ivy that stretched between the trees, he could see the belligerent movement of Red Caps, but they were just keeping guard. After all, what good were the walls of a Maze if you could just cut them away and walk through?

There was a tug on his sleeve, and Corky said, "He's moving again."

Teddy nodded.

Borgin, now barely an adult, took a right down another side passage. By they'd caught up with him, he'd changed. Now he was a young man with an impressive mane of red hair.

"Uncle Rufus," Ruthless muttered. "Sorry."

"Fine with me," Maurice said.

 _We went left, then right_ , Teddy thought. Rufus Scrimgeour led them down this passage, then took a left further in, and another right. He became Teddy's grandfather, John Lupin, a young man with blond hair and broad shoulders who looked nothing like his son or grandson, but had a way of moving and standing that made them all seem alike anyway. He paused with his head cocked to one side. The walls moved outward, and they were in a clearing, but it wasn't a clearing anymore. Boards formed in the dirt, and rocks became tables. It was the Hogwarts library. John turned down an aisle of books.

"Do any of you know which shelves these are?" Donzo asked.

To Teddy's surprise - she wasn't a regular library denizen, outside of their Animagus studies - Ruthless answered. "It's not all the same," she said, "but I think he's in the Potions aisle in the Restricted Section."

"That would make sense," Teddy said. "Do you think my grandfather...?" But he didn't even finish asking. It was too close to them in history - they'd have known if anything had happened that recently.

He pulled a heavy brown book from the shelf, and it fell soundlessly to the floor, opening to a page with a woodcut drawing of a hospital ward. A young witch was crawling along the floor, her hair falling like a shroud over face. Teddy could see every detail of the page, every -

"We're going in!" someone shouted, and the world suddenly changed around them.

The world took a sharp turn, and the black and white figures in the woodcut were now three dimensional, if still in the shadow-less and harsh lines of the medium. Teddy raised his hand, which was now in the same style. His robes hadn't changed, but the others all had - they were now wearing nondescript, ragged clothes as well. The witch crawling along the floor looked up, and the curtain of hair parted to reveal her face. For a single moment, Teddy mistook her for Luna Lovegood, but her face was rounder, her harshly-lined hair thicker.

"Who is she?" Victoire asked. In the woodcut, the lines defining her face were thin and delicate. As Teddy watched, they began to fade into normal shadows as the environment started to take better shape from their minds.

"I don't know. My grandfather led us here. She looks like..." Teddy shook his head helplessly. "Maurice, are the Lupins and Lovegoods related?"

Maurice, whose face was somewhere between a drawing and a photograph now, said, "Quite a long time ago. The Lovegoods are actually closer to the Apcarnes, on the Cheswick side."

"You terrify me," Donzo said. He was starting to seep into colors.

Ruthless, who'd wandered ahead a little, suddenly said, "It's Hogwarts!"

The room snapped into shape. It wasn't the hospital wing, but the Great Hall. Beds lined the aisles where the House tables normally stood. A cowled wizard with a shaved head bent over an apparently sleeping child - too young for Hogwarts - and touched his forehead. "We've lost him," he said. "Another one." He hissed through his teeth.

"Aren't you going to say a blessing, Brother?" a little girl asked.

"I shall do so when my mind is less clouded with unholy thoughts."

"Is it the Friar?" Frankie asked.

"I don't think so," Teddy said. "It doesn't look like him."

"We had it contained in the monastery," the monk said to a tall, thin man beside him. "It was down to three cases. I was on the verge of a cure when the king's men came."

The thin man, who had white-blond hair, drew up and looked disdainfully down his nose. "Had you merely gone along with the new regime, as I did..."

The monk cut him off with a glare, then moved on to the next bed, where a child was breathing thinly. The child's face was tattooed with blood.

"Brother..."

"All is well, Sarah," he said. "Rest."

"Well?" the blond man spat. "Two of my children lay beneath the earth, and a third is fading away. Our mother cast herself from the tower in grief. How dare you say all is well?"

"My dear Callixtus," the monk said quietly, "you should not show your anger to the children. It will drain what strength they have."

"You may have let them destroy your monastery, Jeremiah, but they will not have the last word!"

"Reformation," Donzo said suddenly. "It must be the dissolution of the monasteries. Henry the eighth."

"And Maurice terrifies _you_?" Corky said. "Why can you just pull that out of your head?"

Donzo flipped the bird at him.

Teddy signaled for them to be quiet. The two brothers had moved away from the beds a bit, and were now speaking in soft, low voices.

"I know what you plan," Jeremiah said.

Callixtus drew back. "I plan nothing."

"Why do they talk like us?" Corky asked. "Shouldn't it be all thous and thys and shalts and hasts?"

"Perhaps 'tis," Maurice said, "and thou'rt merely unaware, as thine own tongue has..."

"Oh, shut up."

Teddy nodded. "Stupid as it sounds, that might be it. We're hearing what we understand. I think."

"Or thou mightst be speaking out of thine own arse," Corky muttered. "Who are these people? How did we get here? Just through the book? Don't we have to be connected?"

Teddy wasn't sure how to answer the question. They'd gone in thinking that the Maze was like a strange Pensieve that couldn't operate without direct memories, but of course, it wasn't. It showed possibilities, not absolutes, based on the paths of history that it was able to find. It had tried a few unproductive angles before stumbling on John Lupin and his book, and now it was extrapolating... he thought. He suddenly wanted the vast, unobstructed view he'd had on the night he'd fought with Uncle Harry. Was there another path, as there had been so many possible paths for Brimmann? Or had the Maze stumbled on the reality?

He decided to worry about it later.

He turned back to the brothers, but they were gone, and the hospital ward was fading back into the trees. "Wait! Where are we?"

"Back in the Forest," Frankie said. "But I don't know where."

Teddy looked around. There was something familiar about the rise of the land, the high ridge of stone etched against the moonlit sky, but he couldn't place where he knew it from.

Jeremiah, the monk, was standing patiently on the path, waiting for them to follow. As soon as they all had their bearings, he turned and ran on into the semi-circular clearing, his feet rustling in the ferns. Trees shot their roots up through the shallow earth, and he nearly tripped over one as he made his way to the center.

He looked anxiously over his shoulder, then cleared a patch of ground and set up a collapsible cauldron and lit a fire beneath it. He checked again, then drew a vial from under his robes.

Somewhere nearby, Teddy could hear people thundering through the undergrowth.

Jeremiah tossed the vial violently into the cauldron, where it exploded into a burst of red and gold stars that swirled upward and alit in the trees and crevasses in the rock face, where they shone like diamonds caught in the moon's glow. Jeremiah pointed his wand at one of them - the brightest, high in a crevice on the rock face and said, " _Occludo Territorium_."

The glowing points began to flow together, forming loose, fluid streams, which danced around one another, braiding and unbraiding in the night, then, as though they abruptly reached a critical mass, they shot out in all directions, blasting past Teddy and his friends like spears. They didn't make a sound, but Teddy could _feel_ a sound, a silent crescendo just beyond hearing. Victoire and Ruthless covered their ears.

Then it stopped.

The Forest was still except for the thunder of approaching footsteps.

Jeremiah straightened his shoulders and waited.

Callixtus burst through the tree line, his face transported with fury. "How dare you?" he demanded.

"I can't let you take it back out," Jeremiah said. "I won't allow it."

"You can't do this."

"It's done."

At this Callixtus screamed and ran at his brother, his wand raised aggressively. Instead of casting a curse, he brought it down as a stabbing weapon, missing his brother's eye by less than an inch. Jeremiah sidestepped, and any pretense of a conversation was gone. The brothers struggled in the undergrowth, hurling epithets at one another. Then the world took on the colors of Teddy's recurring nightmare - a flash of steel in the moonlight, blood spilling blood.

Jeremiah pulled himself up and looked down at his brother, now lying on the forest floor, bleeding into the earth. He stumbled backward, his face full of horror, then fell forward, face down, arms spread to either side. A knife fell from one limp hand, and Teddy saw Maurice, almost too late, running forward to try and help.

He grabbed Maurice by the wrist and called, "Everyone, hold on!" As soon as he could see his friends grasping one another, he tightened his hand on Ariadne's Thread and yelled, "Home!"

There was a sensation of pulling them, strong enough that his shoulder would ache for the next two weeks, and then they were thrown back into the torch-lit Divination classroom. Teddy stumbled backward on his seat and sat down hard on the floor.

Maurice sank miserably into his own seat and said, "I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking. I just... his brother was bleeding to death. I was just thinking about my brother Wendell..." He shook his head. "I guess that already happened, though. A long time ago."

"It's all right," Donzo said. "I think we'd seen everything."

"So, there's a potion we don't know how to make and a spell we don't know how to do, somewhere in the forest, in a place we can't get to," Ruthless said. "Good to know."

"Well, we don't need to know the potion," Victoire said. "It's still working. We just need to undo the initiating spell."

Frankie nodded. "It's Galdreward's Quarantine - someone knows how it works, so we can get the reversal spell. We just need to find the place to cast it."

"Are you sure?" Donzo asked. "It went everywhere. Maybe we could do the spell from here."

"Do you really think Madam Pomfrey wouldn't have tried that?"

There was no question that she would have.

"Why didn't he just say where he'd cast it?" Corky asked. "Leave it there so someone could undo it once the brother's idiot friends were locked up and couldn't go out and spread whatever they were sick from?"

"Because he never spoke again," Maurice said. "I read it on a Chocolate Frog card. After his brother died - they didn't say how - Jeremiah Galdreward took a vow of silence, and he never said another word to anyone."

They set Professor Trelawney's classroom back in order before leaving, then stood beneath the trapdoor for a while trying to think of a way to put a seal on the evening. Finally, Corky said, "We've got a start. We can all meet at lunch, right?"

There was general assent.

Maurice checked his watch. "Well... we better get back. Slytherin meeting, if the prefect here happens to remember."

Corky groaned. "They'll wait."

"Slytherin has House meetings?" Donzo asked.

Corky shrugged. "The six prefects all meet once a month to keep an eye on things and hear anyone's problems. Like Maurice's. Or at least one or two of Maurice's; I doubt we'd have time to get to _all_ of them."

"Hey, your girlfriend is seconding this one," Maurice said. "She doesn't like that miserable little... er, first year... any more than I do."

"Maurice and Honoria on the same side," Corky mused. "I'm not sure if that's a sign of progress or a sign of the apocalypse."

"Someone's giving Neil trouble?" Teddy guessed.

Corky nodded. "Yeah. We better get back. She'll be watching the clock by now."

The Slytherins disappeared down the hall, and the rest broke apart naturally a few minutes later, Donzo heading over toward Ravenclaw, Frankie heading down to Hufflepuff, and Teddy going back to Gryffindor with the girls. Ruthless had homework to finish and Victoire had study time set aside, so there wasn't much chance to follow up with them. Instead, Teddy settled himself in his room and got to work on his own homework. Partway through a Divination essay, he happened to think of O.W.L.s - for the first time since the plague had struck - and realized with a panic that they were only a few months away. It felt good to worry about something so silly, and he spent the rest of the evening organizing his revision schedule. He thought Hermione would be pleased with the final result (though he wouldn't share that he hadn't really thought about it until now).

For a few weeks, even though they met at lunch and after Care of Magical Creatures, no one seemed inclined to offer any specific suggestions, but Teddy had a sense that they were all thinking, at some level under their conscious studies. He found himself actually listening to Binns in History of Magic, even paying attention to one of Geoffrey's rants, though nothing about it really stood out (it had caught his attention because Geoffrey had said something about tearing down walls, and Teddy had played with the idea of just breaking through the Maze's walls). He saw Maurice stop a potion he'd nearly finished to ask about protective potions, and their benefits over protective charms (none on their own, according to Professor Morse, but in combination with charms, they tended to multiply effects exponentially). Ruthless had Mum's book out again, and when he settled in beside her at the fireplace to go over fourth year defense techniques and prod her for details of her own O.W.L. in the subject, she eagerly showed him an eighteenth century Auror (one Killian Druce) who'd developed a technique for locating the source of a magical phenomenon. "All we have to do is get close enough, Teddy," she said. "This will find the exact spot." Victoire joined the conversation and said she'd been thinking about what plants grew where in the forest, and maybe they could all get together to figure out what plants they'd seen. Teddy was skeptical, as plants might have changed since the Reformation, but it was as good as anything he'd thought of.

Donzo was in the library, working through books on the right period of history. He found the book that the guide John Lupin had showed them, and learned what he could about the plague, which had descended suddenly and viciously, and lasted for a year before Jeremiah Galdreward isolated it and eventually cured it. Teddy found Frankie having a long conversation with the Fat Friar about Galdreward. Corky got a detention for taking his broomstick out over the Forbidden Forest, far beyond where students were supposed to be. "And I didn't even _find_ the place," he muttered, shoveling hippogriff dung into a pile beside Hagrid's paddock, where someone who'd committed a worse offense would undoubtedly be assigned to bag it up for the greenhouses later.

Teddy dreamed steadily, and he had a sense that they meant something, but even though he dictated them to his quill first thing every morning, he could make no sense of it, because he only remembered disjointed bits. _Uncle Harry and the Stone... I was being a prat... Uncle Harry with spiders, Martian, and Checkmate... Stone again, and Frankie... James - Uncle Harry's dad, not my James - and Sirius, transforming... Mum and Maddie and Hagrid with centaurs (?)..._

There were other dreams, but he didn't bother transcribing them. He somehow doubted that Ruthless, Victoire, and Jane deciding that they wouldn't mind if he went out with all of them at the same time was really valid input about anything.

The pattern might have held indefinitely - it was a huge relief to share the problem, and dabbling at solutions was habit-forming - but all of the work they'd been doing had been noticed.

Teddy had continued taking art lessons from Dean, not paying much attention to them, as he never developed any sudden talent. During the first week of February, he'd managed to master the concept behind drawing eyes in profile (though he still couldn't master any angle other than that or straight forward), and he was concentrating on practicing this new skill at the end of class, when a dark hand fell on his wrist and he realized that he was the last student in the room.

He turned. Aside from Dean, Professor McGonagall, Professor Longbottom, and Professor Robards were there. Daniel came through the door and shut it behind him.

Professor Longbottom sat down beside an easel where a third year Hufflepuff had been painting daisies. "Is it something we've done?"

Teddy frowned. "What?"

Robards rolled his eyes. "Teddy, you know we've been working on the same problem you are. We might be able to keep you from going over the same ground again, and you might have something we don't know. Is there some reason you're not sharing?"

"I didn't think... er..." Teddy glanced from one to another. They didn't seem angry. To some extent, they seemed _amused_. Teddy felt anger starting to stir, and swallowed it. "Maybe I wanted to find something you'd take seriously."

"Oh," Professor Longbottom said, "that's true. I could never imagine a student coming up with anything useful. Could you, Dean?"

"Never saw it happen," Dean said.

Daniel stepped forward. "Enough. You're giving him good enough reasons to think you wouldn't take him seriously right now. Personally, I'd rather find out what they know, and I have to get back to my patients. Teddy?"

Teddy nodded to him gratefully, then turned back to Professor Longbottom. "Are you going to make us stop?"

"We're all stuck here," he said. "This isn't a teacher-student matter. Unless you're doing something that's insane, we'll take any help we can get."

"Well, I think..." Teddy paused to organize his thoughts - and edit out anything that was insane or personal - then said, "I talked to my friends because I thought maybe they could find something new in what I'd seen in the Maze, and somehow, it came up that we should try going in together..."

The adults listened with at least a good facsimile of respect. Daniel had hoped they'd been looking for a way to cure the plague that was on the grounds, but was happy enough to try to find a way to break the Quarantine. Professors Robards and McGonagall had been able to dig up the counterspell, but it wasn't effective unless it was cast in the right place.

"What about the amplifying potion?" Professor Longbottom asked. "Do we need to brew it?"

"I would assume, given our current situation," Professor McGonagall said, "that the original spell is still active. The Quarantine can be ended with the charm reversal."

"So how are we going to find it?" Dean asked. "Teddy, the place where it was set - did you know it?"

"It looked familiar, but I don't know why."

Robards nodded. "Well, it's safe to say that he'd have placed it as close to the school as he could without being stopped by his brother and the others. I've been reading Jane Hunter's work about Muggle forensics - perhaps we could collect samples, and I could test them for magical residue from the spell? Then if we find the place where it's most concentrated, we try the counterspell there."

"Us, too?" Teddy asked.

"Yes. Let's keep it to that size group, or we'll start losing track of what we're looking at, but I'll find some jars. Perhaps Cho - Professor Morse - has some spare vials from the Potions classroom that she could spare. When we have time, we can go into the Forest."

Professor McGonagall cleared her throat. "All of that is well and good, but I hope Mr. Lupin and his friends will agree to stay in the part of the Forbidden Forest they know, and let those of us with a few more years of experience go deeper in. And please, keep to your classes. It's O.W.L. year, no matter what else is happening."

They talked a bit more, mostly arranging routes they'd follow - Teddy and his friends were firmly kept to the eaves of the Forest - then split up. It was after curfew, so Teddy needed to be escorted back to Gryffindor. Robards volunteered.

They were nearly to the Fat Lady when he stopped and said, "All of this came from looking for Brimmann?"

Teddy winced. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it."

"Of course not," Robards said, then shook his head with what seemed, shockingly, to be admiration. "You've done very good work on my assignment, Teddy, and I didn't know about any of it. You really think you know where Brimmann's ship is?"

"Yes. Sometimes the Maze... well, _once_ , anyway... the Maze just opened up. It showed me everything. I couldn't see it all at once. But you can check. I'm pretty sure the ship is down not far from Lisbon."

"When the Quarantine goes down, I _will_ check. And you'll get your prize. Your mother would be so proud of you."

"Not with all the cock-ups on the way."

Robards laughed and started moving again. "Tonks never held a cock-up or two against anyone, and I doubt she'd start with you."

He waited for the Fat Lady to open the way, then wandered off down the hall, smiling fondly. Teddy shook his head and went inside.


	22. Mask

**Chapter 22:**

 **Mask**

Two nights after the art class - a week before Valentine's Day - Teddy and his friends met in the Great Hall after supper and went down to the greenhouses to meet with the teachers. When pressed about this by other students, Maurice finally "admitted" that they'd got detention for breaking into Trelawney's classroom. Teddy wasn't sure this lie was especially necessary, but it did seem to answer any questions that might have held them up.

Aside from Dean, Daniel, and the teachers who'd already spoken to Teddy, Professors Flitwick and Hagrid and the Headmistress were in attendance, as was Professor Morse, who'd brought a large crate with her. The crate was filled with small covered glass jars, which she distributed evenly, five to each person except Daniel, who wouldn't be able to handle any unpleasant magical creatures and had to stay in the hospital wing at any rate.

"They're unbreakable," she said, "so go ahead and throw them into your briefcases - or book bags," she added, smiling at the students. "Professor Robards tells me a small scoop of soil from any place you sample will be enough to test."

Robards nodded and took over. "I've split the known part of the forest into fairly large patches..." He assigned students parts of the forest near the eaves, and put the teachers further in. Teddy noticed that Professor Longbottom got the patch of earth that probably contained the old spider's nest - the part that he and Uncle Harry had left Unplottable. Professor McGonagall and Hagrid got the furthest reaches, with open edges, as they'd both done considerable exploration. Once these were handed out, Robards said, "With all the magic around Hogwarts, it's going to be a long slog to analyze for one spell. So, maybe we should rotate times, as well."

"We can help," Ruthless suggested. "With the analysis. I got a little ahead of myself in Defense..."

"How far?"

"Er... Well, you may have forgotten giving me a pass into the Restricted Section."

"Oh, yes, open-ended. It's all coming back to me," Robards said dryly.

"While I was there, I looked at some of Professor Dumbledore's work on magical detection. I could help."

"I won't say no," he said. "It'll still be slow, though." He smiled sheepishly. "I'm afraid we have a few more people doing this than are absolutely necessary. But I'm not going to kick anyone out. More help than we need is a problem I'm willing to handle."

There was some talk about how to handle it if they found something, and of course, the danger of spreading the plague (Teddy considered bringing up the problem of fixing the Maze, so it wouldn't spill any further, but decided to let it wait; someone would be able to help if they could get out), but ultimately, it was just a working meeting, the same sort of thing Teddy did when it was only his friends he was talking to. It had occurred to him in the past that he might someday be a friend of George Weasley's or Lee Jordan's - he spent time just playing cards with them and swapping stories over the summer already - but for the first time, the thought that Neville Longbottom could be a person he might call by his first name again and talk to as an equal occurred to him. Dizzyingly, he imagined even McGonagall as a friend. Why not? She had a wicked sense of humor, and biting sarcasm that wasn't much different from his other friends. Through his father's ring, he knew the Marauders and Mum's friends as people, and liked them (though of course, he couldn't always associate Mum's friend Maddie with Frankie's mum Maddie). Why not Minerva McGonagall, who he knew as well as anyone else did, or maybe better, as he didn't think anyone else knew that she'd once been called "Pallas" by a boy named Alphard Black?

He shook his head. There were more important things to think about.

His first day for collecting samples was Saturday, and he went to his little patch of forest with his jars. A herd of unicorns was grazing in a meadow, ignoring the pounding rain. The older ones ran off when they saw him, but one of the golden foals remained, watching curiously as Teddy scooped soil from five points on the east side, heading toward what looked like an overgrown path. When he took the last one, he dug around in his book bag for an apple he'd saved from breakfast, and tossed it to the foal. To his delight, it responded with a healthy whinny, then came over and nudged him with his cheek. "There's a good" - he checked - "boy, yes..."

The mother appeared a moment later and made a shrill sound. The foal, looking disappointed, cantered off, picking up the apple on its way. Teddy considered it quite unfair that he was being judged just for being a boy, but they couldn't help their nature.

When he got to Robards' office, he found Ruthless bent over five small piles of dirt, each marked with a number. She looked discouraged.

"Just put them on the desk," she said. "Mark them with your initials or something. I'm still on McGonagall's, and she was first out. Robards is working on Maurice's; he came in this morning. But there's so much magic in this! If I were doing Priori Incantatem on it, it would take a week!"

Teddy set his jars down, and helped himself to five new empty ones for the next go around, which would be next weekend (all of the students had been scheduled to collect samples on weekends). These went to the bottom of his bag. "I'm sure you'll do fine." He bit his lip. "Thursday is Valentine's Day. And I think they're going to have some things set up next Saturday - just stupid things, I think, like setting up the Great Hall with tables for two and so on, and..."

She looked at him miserably. "I know."

"Well, are you doing anything?"

"I thought I'd head off to Paris."

"Do you want to... I don't know."

"Find a place and snog you silly?"

Teddy smiled. "Well, the idea has its charms."

"It does," she said. "But I, er..."

Teddy felt cold. "You're spending Valentine's Day with someone else."

"No! I mean, yes. But not - Well, maybe. I don't think so, but he might, and - "

"Who?"

"Roger Young."

"It's not nonsense with him?"

"It's not likely to distract me as much as you do." She prodded the pile of soil she was working on, and it snarled threateningly.

Teddy shook his head and walked out, ignoring her call of "Lupin!" after him. He continued to ignore her for the week, and ignored Roger in Herbology when he came over and tried to explain, over a dying cabbage plant, that he hadn't _meant_ any harm.

"Well, what do you expect?" Victoire asked over homework on Thursday night. "If you're not going out with her, she's going to go out with someone else."

"I wasn't the one who broke up!" Teddy tried to continue fuming, but Victoire was watching him with a dry smirk, and it _did_ start to look a little ridiculous. He shrugged. "All right. Well, I guess you're not allowed, but maybe we could do something. Just as friends..."

"Sorry," Victoire said. "I have another Valentine's friend."

Jane Hunter just laughed and asked how far down his list he'd got, and Lani Khetran, who'd been Donzo's girlfriend third year, turned out to be going out with the captain of the Ravenclaw Quidditch team. Laura slapped him across the face, and Lizzie said she'd rather spend the day alone.

In all, Teddy was glad to have samples to collect on Saturday. The castle was madly decorated, and most of his friends had either gone off with their girlfriends or disappeared. Donzo had disappeared early in the week, except for classes, and had muttered in History of Magic that he didn't mean to come out until Monday. The Forest was quiet and starting to smell of the upcoming spring, even though the snow still held in the shadows. The unicorns were gone, but some fairies were coming out of hibernation, and a mud-blooming flower was much better than all of the lace and idiocy draped around the Great Hall.

When he was done, he put the soil-filled jars back in his book bag, but didn't go up to Robards' office. Anything seemed like a better idea than going back to the castle. So he wandered up to Hagrid's, and spent an hour or two helping with the hippogriffs. Buckbeak seemed to have got used to Dapple, at least a little bit, and they were sharing the dead rats that Hagrid had caught for them. Hagrid went up to lunch just before one, but Teddy claimed not to be hungry and stayed behind to curry Dapple. He was getting bigger now, and his wings were powerful. Teddy watched as he stretched them, wondering if he'd ever know what it felt like to do that himself, then to flap them and take off.

"Is it fun?" he asked Dapple.

Dapple responded by taking a leap, circling up into the air, and coming down with a cheerful bounce. Teddy patted his beak.

In the corner, there was suddenly a great racket as troll's foot umbrella stand full of stable rakes up-ended and spilled across the flagstones. Dapple jumped back, and Buckbeak dropped into a threatening position.

Teddy patted Buckbeak's neck and said, "It's okay, big boy. They just fell..." He frowned. There was something moving in the shadow. A tiny hand with long black fingers reached into a bar of hazy sunlight. Teddy drew his wand, not having any idea what Hagrid might have brought in now.

"Come on out," he said. "I dare you."

The hand reached further in, and Teddy could see now that it was a paw, a black paw coming off of a light brown foreleg.

He moved around.

A pair of eyes glinted out of the shadows, low to the ground, sparkling from inside a black mask.

Teddy grabbed one of the rakes. The tines were coated with hippogriff dung, and the animal behind the umbrella stand wrinkled its nose and shuffled clumsily backward, backing out into the gray February sunshine and splashing into a deep mud puddle. It was four-footed, its fur a grayish sort of brown, the mask around its eyes...

Teddy frowned and lowered the rake.

"Donzo?"

The raccoon shook its coat vigorously, spraying mud in all directions, then tensed up until its fur stood on end. Nothing happened.

Teddy raised his eyebrows.

It tensed again and pulled itself upright, grasping the fence with its little paws.

"Do you need help?"

It shook its head, then, with no further theatrics, became Donzo McCormack. He turned away from the fence with a sheepish grin. "That would have served me right, if I couldn't get back."

Teddy had no idea what he was expected to say. "Er... well, yes. That was why we were supposed to do it together."

"True, but I said I'd race you. Is it my fault you didn't keep up?"

There was a pit of sour bile in Teddy's stomach, but that wasn't fair - Donzo was right; he _had_ dropped off lately, and if Donzo hadn't, he deserved to get it first.

No matter whose idea it had been.

He smiled. "What do you win? An alley full of dustbins to rummage?"

"I think I've earned the Map for a day or two."

"What would _I_ have got?"

Donzo gave it thought. "Oh, nothing quite so spectacular. I'd have just brought you on tour over the summer. Presuming we get out of Hogwarts by then."

"Oh, well, then. Nothing special." Teddy put the rake back and righted the umbrella stand. "It's not like you're going anywhere _interesting._ Just the Yucatan - "

" - the Cloaked Islands - "

" - Cape Cod - "

" - Rio..."

"Right. Nowhere at all."

Donzo grinned. "You know you're coming anyway, even if you can't fly for yourself."

"If we get out." There was a nudge at Teddy's shoulder, and he found Dapple eagerly leaning forward for a pat on the neck. He led the hippogriff out, and walked with Donzo toward the Forest. "So how did you do it?"

"It's hard to explain," Donzo said. "That's why it's not it the books. It's nonverbal, even inside your head. You don't think, 'I want to be a raccoon,' or 'Let's have wings now.' It's more..." He shook his head helplessly. "It was like everything fell into place at once, and I understood the thing. I'd been reading Prongs's notes again, about identity, and I started flipping through one of those fortune-telling books about what your animal totem means. With raccoons, it's all about the mask, you know. And I started thinking about the business with the mirror, where I was just Don Duke - remember how Ruthless said that was just my fantasy?"

"Yes."

"Well, then I thought, 'Which is the mask?'"

He didn't go on with this, so Teddy prodded, "Well, which _is_?"

"Not a clue," Donzo answered lightly. "And not the point. It was just that, while I was thinking about it, I _understood._ "

"Understood _what_?"

"How to do it."

"Because of a fortune-telling book. And Prongs."

"That's the weird part. The deer? It's about innocence and gentleness. From everything you've said... is that right?"

"I don't know," Teddy said. "Prongs wasn't exactly innocent, but..." He squirmed. It felt odd to analyze the Marauders, especially about something _that_ maudlin. James had been arrogant and had a mean streak when it came to people he didn't like, but he'd also been the glue that had held the others together, mainly by the force of his love for them. That wasn't the sort of thing he could exactly say, of course, so he said, "I reckon he was gentle enough, as long as you weren't into Dark Magic. I still don't understand what it has to do with the Animagus spell. We knew all of that."

"I can't explain. It just all came together." Donzo stopped walking. "Teddy, I really didn't mean to do it without you. I didn't think it would work when I tried it. I was just bored and hiding in the library. There were these second years, and one of them is the president of my fan club, and she knew I wasn't with anyone for Valentine's Day, and I just didn't feel like - "

"It's all right. Did you just get it this morning?"

Donzo nodded, absently patting Dapple's beak. "I did it and came straight down. Got quite a strange look from your cat." He shrugged and started walking toward the Forest again. "Of course, it's not a great disguise. Raccoons aren't even native here. Sort of conspicuous."

"True, but you can't help your animal. It'll be quite handy if you want to hide when you're on tour in the States or Canada."

"Or Germany," Donzo added. "They've a good colony there."

Teddy pushed down the resentful jealousy in his stomach and said, "Good job. I think it definitely rates the Map for a week. Do you want me to bind you to it? You'd fit. We'll call you 'Mr. Mask,' and you can spend eternity saying snide things to people who order you around."

Donzo considered it, then said, "No. That's yours."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes." They'd reached the edge of the woods, and they stopped. "What are you doing here, anyway?"

"Hiding less productively than you are. And currying the hippogriffs."

Donzo shrugged. "That's productive for the hippogriffs. I thought maybe you were working on Robards' project."

"I already did it. It doesn't take long to get the samples. Probably Ruthless will figure this out before I do."

Donzo looked at him shrewdly. "You'll get this, Teddy. Once you know it, you'll just... know it. And you'll be able to do it. And you'll have a much more useful animal than I have." He looked out between the trees. "Do you want to go out into the Forest? See if anything looks familiar?"

It seemed like as good a thing to do as any, so they took Dapple back, made sure the paddock was secure, then followed a few of the better known paths for an hour or two. Teddy climbed a high rock and morphed his eyes to hawk's eyes, but still couldn't see anything resembling what they'd seen in the Maze. It felt better than collecting soil samples.

Donzo transformed a few more times during the walk, getting a handle on the gait and sniffing eagerly around - "You wouldn't believe how much more you can _smell!_ " he announced when he changed back the third time. He was pleased with the skill, and Teddy did his best not be resentful, promising himself that soon, he'd fly.

When the shadows got too deep in the afternoon, they headed back to the castle together. To Teddy's relief, the teachers had relented and put one normal table back in the Great Hall, so, as long as he ignored the cozy little Valentine's tables scattered around (Victoire was sitting at one with a Ravenclaw he didn't recognize; she looked bored), he was able to pick up an early supper. After, he went up to Gryffindor alone, wondering if he'd find Ruthless crowing about finding the clearing, or perhaps gamboling around as a fox. She wasn't actually in the Common Room, though, so if she was doing either, she was doing it elsewhere.

He went up to his room. Checkmate ran down the stairs from higher up in the tower, where she'd probably been chasing mice. She nudged his ankles aggressively until he picked her up.

Inside the room, slid under the door, were three handmade cards. The first was from Marie, who had apparently made one for everyone, as it was very generic. The second was from Ruthless, who wrote, _Weasley the second's selling blank cards, so I thought I'd buy one to get her off my back, and I'm certainly not sending it to Roger. I'm sorry about that. You're still my biggest distraction. Love, R._

There were no doodled hearts and the handwriting had a matter-of-fact quality to it, but still, "Love." Love was an improvement over "nonsense."

The third card was from Victoire. She'd also foregone the hearts and frills, but she'd written, _Thank you. You know what for._ A spill of blue and white aethracandia petals fell from it, filling the room with their calming scent.

Teddy set all three cards up on his desk, and put the petals at the base of the pot where he kept the live plant.

He took out the Marauder's Map and spent some time studying it, updating here and there, trying to think of some new enchantment that would improve it. In the end, he just brought up the Marauders' view and touched their totems.

"I guess I'm not very good at this," he told them. "If you're listening, I wouldn't mind a dream to explain it."

He went to bed early with this in mind, hoping he'd have a grand dream that would show him everything he needed to know to catch up. But when he dreamed, the Marauders were quiet, moving through the trees in the Forest, flanking Uncle Harry as he made his way to the spiders' nest. Teddy followed, just as silent, an echo of the future as they were echoes of the past. In his hands were jars with soil samples. Uncle Harry turned to look at him, and then it was another time, the night they'd fought there in the spiders' nest, about the Resurrection Stone. It was all silent, but Teddy knew the words they'd spoken, and he wanted to take it back, all of it, from the moment he'd asked what it meant, even from finding out about the undelivered message. If he could just un-know that, he thought in the dream, the whole mad year would turn normal.

But even in a dream, that wasn't possible.

Something snarled. The dream-Teddy and the dream-Uncle Harry didn't notice it, but now there was a second Teddy, a Teddy watching all of it, and he turned. The werewolf was in a tree tunnel, its eyes red in the moonlight. It leapt, and Teddy ran, recklessly and thoughtlessly, crashing through the undergrowth.

He was still running when Checkmate woke him up with a stern demand for breakfast.

He spent most of Sunday in the library, reading all of the omen books on hawks that he'd missed. The hawk was a messenger, it was far-seeing, it was apparently a "permanent totem" (whatever that meant), it was violent and beautiful and had something to do with being Seer, though none of the books were especially clear on _what_. All of this, he'd already run across in one form or another. Donzo offered to sing a song that he happened to know about a hawk, but Teddy declined; he couldn't see it helping much. When Madam Pince kicked him out, he went back to his room and Conjured his Patronus.

"Wings," he muttered, watching it flutter around the room. Uncle Harry had taught him the spell, there in the Shrieking Shack. Mostly in the kitchen. He'd Conjured it the first time while they worked to fix everything in it that had been broken, but of course, the primary thing that had been broken was the life of the house, and that couldn't be repaired. The house was dead, except that for Teddy, it had been horribly alive, and Uncle Harry had known that, had let him try to fix it, even though he believed that the dead couldn't be raised, that -

Teddy frowned. Something tried to make a connection in his mind.

 _It was like everything fell into place at once, and I understood the thing..._

Wings flickered in the shadows, startling Checkmate, then disappeared. Teddy didn't Conjure him again.

Instead, he grabbed a quill and a piece of parchment and wrote, _Uncle Harry. Stone. Can't raise the dead, even though he can raise the dead._

His mind started to circle in on this, but he pulled it away. That argument was for some other day. It was something _about_ it, some connection.

He grabbed the dream journal he'd been keeping. The notes jumped out at him. _Uncle Harry. Stone. I was being a prat... Uncle Harry... Forest... Marauders in the Forest..._

Quickly, he added last night's unpleasant contribution.

 _Uncle Harry and Marauders. Uncle Harry and me. Werewolf. Chased me down a path. Running._

Running.

He changed for bed in a daze, letting shapes come into his mind at will. The forest. The Stone. The fire. The figure in the smoke. Uncle Harry.

Running.

He'd just pulled up his covers when it came to him in a single, unbroken jolt.

He knew where he'd seen the clearing before.

But he couldn't get there without help.

He tried to sleep for nearly ten minutes, but his nerves were buzzing like flies. He got out of bed and pulled out the Marauder's Map. The way was clear.

He grabbed a candle and headed out of Gryffindor Tower.

The corridors were moonlit, and quiet except for the gentle snoring of the portraits. Nearly Headless Nick was floating near a window, contemplating the night, but he didn't notice Teddy go by.

The figures in Dean's mural all had some kind of movement now, and their basic colors were blocked in. Dean was working on the details now. Most of them were sleeping against the painted walls of the staff room. Dad had taken a seat, and was sleeping with his head tipped back. Only the boggart was fully awake. It rounded silently on Teddy, changing itself into a werewolf with sharp, unforgiving fangs.

Teddy watched it for a minute, then shook his head and crossed three times in front of the door to the Room of Requirement, thinking, "I need to talk to Uncle Harry."

The door appeared. It was a small classroom now, nothing fancy. On one of Dean's easels stood the portrait of Phineas Nigellus from the Headmistress's office, snoring loudly.

"Grayfur," Teddy whispered.

The portrait's snore paused, then resumed.

Teddy closed the door and spoke louder. "Grayfur, it's Teddy Lupin. I know you're awake."

The portrait's eyes opened slightly, and Phineas scowled. "I'm aware of who you are, and had I wished a conversation, there are any number of portraits within the castle I could have used to attract your attention."

"I need your help."

"I am somewhat less than surprised." He gave a long suffering sigh, then said, "Perhaps you'd like to discuss the summer activities of my old comrades, or your great-great grandfather's favorite nursery rhyme. It was a wretched thing that involved porridge."

Teddy smiled and sat down. "No. I need to talk to Uncle Harry. You remember nursery rhymes?"

"My son was a sentimental fool who insisted on adding his own memories of me to this portrait."

"That can work? Dean said you needed to collect memories of a person from the person..."

"It is certainly necessary to have the primary subject's input, but other memories may add, shall we say, flavor." He looked down his narrow, aristocratic nose and said, "I do not imagine that you've called me here to discuss magical art at this ungodly hour."

Teddy nodded. "Could I talk to Uncle Harry? Please? It's important."

"Are you aware of the time?"

"Yes."

Phineas pressed his lips together crossly, then said, "Very well. With what vital question shall I awaken Harry Potter at this hour?"

"I need to know what direction I ran on the night we quarreled."

"I would imagine that you are a better judge of that than he would be."

"I wasn't entirely in my right mind. Please, Grayfur."

Phineas shook his head and disappeared out of his frame.

Teddy tapped his fingers on the desk and looked at the Marauder's Map again. The clearing he'd fallen into the night he'd fought with Uncle Harry hadn't appeared when he'd updated. He'd flown over the Forest to get home, and he'd run there from an Unplottable location. The Map had no way to update it. But he remembered - now - rolling over and looking up at the nearly full moon reflecting off the rise of stone. The recall was complete. He could even feel his twisted ankle, long-healed, throbbing in the autumn chill.

The rage came as well - the crazy, black-threaded red fog that he'd been in - but he didn't have time for it, and didn't want to use it.

Phineas slipped back into his frame five minutes after he left. "I will have you know," he said coolly, "that it was not sleep I interrupted."

Teddy blushed. "Tell him I'm sorry."

"Perhaps you would care for his response to your first query before I pass on your apologies."

"Er... yes."

Phineas nodded. "He said you ran south toward the castle, but east, away from it. Deep into the Forest. Why he, as a responsible adult, chose not to retrieve you is somewhat beyond me."

"We'd fought."

"You are a foolish and headstrong boy. He is meant to be a grown man."

Teddy wasn't sure whether or not that meant Phineas was on his side. He said, "Could you ask him where I could start? I need to get back to where I was. It's important."

Looking quite disgusted with the whole business, Phineas left again. When he reappeared, he said, "Your godfather accepts your apology - I should not have - but is not able to give you directions to a place which is Unplottable, an eventuality which I might have been able to illuminate for you without recourse to tedious errands."

"Could Professor Longbottom break the spell?"

Phineas remained in the frame.

Teddy said, "Well?"

"I thought I would wait to see if you had further messages to carry. Attempting a two-way conversation in this manner is absurd."

Teddy considered this, trying to anticipate what questions Uncle Harry might want to ask. He tried to make himself think of it as writing a letter. "All right," he said. "Tell him I'm not trying to find what we talked about. I'm trying to break the Quarantine, so that Healers can get here and cure people who have the plague, which will get you out of the message carrying business."

"A welcome prospect," Phineas said primly. "Further commentary?"

"I'm sorry for waking him up, and... well... he knows what else I'm sorry for. Being a prat. Tell him I'm sorry for being a prat."

"A heartfelt and sincere apology, I'm sure," Phineas muttered, then left.

Teddy got up and started pacing. He went to the window and looked out at the black shadows of the Forbidden Forest. Somewhere in that murk was the place he needed to go. But he hadn't thought to take note of his surroundings. Why would he have?

"Ahem."

He turned. Phineas was back in frame. "What did he say?" Teddy asked.

"You are to see Professor Longbottom, and _only_ Professor Longbottom, to discuss the matter fully. Apparently, Longbottom is in possession of whatever arcane knowledge your godfather shared with you, and is cognizant of the nature of your quarrel, so you may speak to him freely. I was not given any information about what you may speak freely _about_ " - he looked quite miffed at this - "so I will have to assume you know."

Teddy nodded. "Did he say whether or not Professor Longbottom can break the spell?"

"He mentioned that it would be Longbottom's choice. At that point, I'm afraid the entire business was interrupted by three children who ought to have been asleep, and who insist for some reason that I tell 'their Teddy' that the household cat has sired kittens and the household dog has not been properly housebroken, which young Albus discovered much to his disgust on the way to speak to you. I fear I am unable to convey the visual I was asked to convey."

"That's all right. I er... could you tell them I miss them and tell James I'll have stories for him?"

"May I assume this is the end of your necessary communication?"

"I guess so. Except... tell Uncle Harry I miss him, too. I'm not sure he knows."

Phineas rolled his eyes and disappeared. He didn't return, though Teddy waited fifteen minutes before leaving the Room of Requirement. He went back to his dormitory and slept until just before dawn.

Curfew wasn't technically over yet, but he'd never heard of anyone getting detention for being up too early, and he wanted to catch Professor Longbottom before breakfast.


	23. One Foggy Morning

**Chapter 23:**

 **One Foggy Morning**

Teddy checked the Marauder's Map as soon as he was out in the corridor, not wanting to wake up Professor Longbottom or Hannah, and was glad to find that they were already outside, walking down the path to the greenhouses together. As soon as he got out the front door, he could see their wands glowing in the dim and foggy morning, which was still showing only a hint of sunrise to come. He followed them, speeding up to catch them.

"Professor Longbottom!" he called.

The wands stopped, and Teddy heard Hannah say, "What on Earth...?"

"It's Teddy!" he called into the fog.

A shadow loomed taller, then resolved itself into Professor Longbottom. He was frowning deeply. "What is it, Teddy? What's happened?"

"I, er..." Teddy stopped, feeling suddenly foolish, acting like it was a great emergency. "I'm sorry," he said. "I just... I should have waited, it's not..."

"What is it?" Hannah asked, coming up behind her husband.

"I think I remembered where the clearing is."

Professor Longbottom blinked. "And you thought it could _wait_? Where is it?"

"I don't know." Teddy shook his head. "I mean, I know where it is, but I don't know where to start to get to it, and Uncle Harry said - "

"You talked to Harry?"

"I sort of borrowed Phineas Nigellus," Teddy admitted.

"All right, then," Professor Longbottom said. "What did Harry say?"

"He said I could only talk to you, because you know what we quarreled about." He looked awkwardly at Hannah. "I, er... don't know if..."

"I know there's something I'm not to know," Hannah said calmly. "Go on." She stood on her tiptoes and kissed Professor Longbottom's cheek. "I'll take care of the Wolfsbane, darling. You go ahead."

She turned and slipped away into the fog.

Professor Longbottom led Teddy off in the other direction, toward the Whomping Willow. It threw slow-moving, fuzzy-edged shadows into the fog, which played over them as they skirted around it. Professor Longbottom raised his wand and Teddy saw a stick fly toward the trunk, and a moment later, the branches were still. He led Teddy to the far side of the tree, where the roots raised themselves above the ground, and they each took one to sit on. Teddy's eyes followed the deep ditch that now ran from the Willow to Hogsmeade, where the tunnel had caved in two years ago. In the spring, it would fill with bobbing wildflowers, but now, it was a mire of mud, and he could see the remains of the stones that had once lined it. Someone had used a blue and bronze Glitter Charm to write "Ravenclaw Dominates!" on one of them. A clumsily drawn witch on a broomstick re-enacted the winning capture from last year's Cup match.

"Tell me," Professor Longbottom said.

"I remembered last night. I just knew, suddenly." Teddy watched the Ravenclaw cartoon witch fly upside down and snatch an out-of-proportion Golden Snitch from under a Bludger. "After Uncle Harry and I quarreled, I was upset, and I ran..." He told the rest of the story, from going to the Room of Requirement up until Uncle Harry's final instruction, then waited for Professor Longbottom to speak.

It took a moment, then he said, "Teddy, I know you have reasons for wanting to go to that clearing..."

"Yes, but that's not it! It's true! You can come with me, you can see that I won't be digging around for the Stone!"

Professor Longbottom hissed and looked over his shoulder. "Don't say it quite so loudly, Teddy. Sound carries."

Teddy ground his teeth. "Sorry."

"It's all right. Old habits and cautions. I didn't see anyone out." Professor Longbottom looked down the tunnel ditch, following Teddy's eyes. "I'm not worried that you're trying to trick me, Teddy, just that it will torment you. But if we have to go there, we have to. You'll understand if I don't show you how to break the spell."

"Fine," Teddy said, trying to bite down the irritation that was pumping merrily along his nerves. "I just want to fix this before Tinny Gudgeon ends up flunking her O.W.L.s because she's been in stasis all year."

Professor Longbottom didn't press the issue. He flicked his wand, and his Patronus flew out toward the greenhouses. "Hannah can take my morning classes," he explained. "I suggest that you ask McCormack and Burke to get your notes, or McGonagall will have both of our heads."

Teddy sent his Patronus up twice, once to ask Donzo for History of Magic and Charms notes and the second time to ask Maurice for Defense Against the Dark Arts.

Professor Longbottom stood and started walking toward the Forest. He stopped when they were a few yards under the eaves, and lit his wand, signaling Teddy to do the same. The sun had risen somewhat since they'd sat down together, but the fog was still too thick to see without help. "Teddy," Professor Longbottom said, "it's not just you. This isn't about keeping it away from Teddy Lupin. Do you really understand that?"

Teddy didn't answer.

"Harry knows it's destroyed a lot of brilliant wizards. They got caught on wanting something they couldn't have. Did he tell you that it was too much for Dumbledore?"

"No. We, er... didn't have an entirely philosophical conversation about it."

"He just thought you'd understand," Professor Longbottom said, and sighed. He started moving again. "Don't blame him too much. He came by the knowledge the hard way. I don't think it's occurred to him that you have to get it that way as well. He can't just give it to you by osmosis."

"So, what's wrong with wanting it?" Teddy asked.

"It's a way of living in the past, and you can't do that. All we have is the present."

"Just one big foggy Forbidden Forest where you can't see anything ahead of you or behind you?" Teddy said, looking around pointedly.

Professor Longbottom shrugged and, to Teddy's surprise, smiled. "That's about the size of it. I knew you'd catch on." They went a bit further down the path, Professor Longbottom occasionally checking a plant off to the side, apparently as a reference, then he said, "Wait a moment, Teddy."

He slipped ahead into the fog, and Teddy saw the flash of spells being done ahead. There were apparently done nonverbally, as no sound carried back. When it ended, Professor Longbottom came back and led the way through a tunnel of branches, down a slope, and into the ashy hollow where Uncle Harry had once died, and Teddy nearly had.

"This is it," Professor Longbottom said.

Teddy nodded and started to look around for landmarks. It all looked different in the diffuse gray light, but he thought that the rocks near the path were where he and Uncle Harry had sat down to talk. Tentatively, he sat down on one. He could see the dip in the land, and the new growth of fern, now withered in the winter chill.

"Well?"

"I don't know." Teddy bit his lip and stood up. "We were here, arguing, and Uncle Harry said I ran south, toward the castle, but east, away from it. He raised his wand arm, wondering if he could use it like a compass to point him to whatever path he'd stumbled on.

"Point me," Professor Longbottom said.

Teddy looked over his shoulder and saw Professor Longbottom's wand turning, then pointing clearly across the hollow.

"That's north. South would be the way the handle is pointing. East would be..." Professor Longbottom tried to peer through the fog. "On our right. You'd have been going _that_ way." He pointed at what looked like a solid wall of trees and rocks.

Teddy went to it.

The ground was uneven and strewn with large rocks. Nothing looked like a path. Then again, he _had_ managed to twist his ankle badly at some point.

He closed his eyes and tried to remember, wishing he'd thought to go to the library and learn to use Dumbledore's Pensieve before trying this. Then he could just watch himself as he stood up, backing away from Uncle Harry and the hateful thing he'd said, stumbling toward the shadows, twisting his ankle on...

"There!" He ran forward to where one of the flatter rocks was leaning at a sharp but not impossible-to-navigate angle. He'd stepped wrong on it, but not wrong enough to topple over.

More carefully this time, remembering Dudley Dursley's lessons in balancing, he teetered through the gap and into a natural corridor between the trees. There was no beaten path here, and he could see many places where undergrowth had made headway, but it was definitely the path of least resistance. It _had_ to be the way he'd come.

He looked back at the clearing. Professor Longbottom was waiting there calmly. Beyond him, the spiders' hollow was blanketed in fog like smoke, and Teddy could almost feel the cool hand on his neck and...

He bit his tongue.

"This is it," he said. "I went this way."

He turned his back decisively, and started pushing his way into the Forest.

Nothing looked familiar, but he didn't really expect it to. The night he'd run this path, he hadn't been gazing rapturously at the wonders of nature. Anything he might have remembered was swaddled in fog, which was now taking on a golden tinge, but not dissipating.

He kept careful track of where the path turned this time, not wanting to lose the path back and be forced to call for a broomstick again, this time in front of Professor Longbottom, who had caught up with him quickly, and was walking along beside him and looking with great interest at the forest plants.

"It's a Cavorting Crocus," he said as they passed a small flower pushing up through the snow. "Once it gets stronger, it'll start to move about."

"What does it do?"

"It does what it does. We mainly use it ornamentally. Remind me to tell Victoire, once we've got this fixed. She was just mentioning in class that she was looking forward to seeing them."

Teddy nodded and went on ahead. Professor Longbottom pointed out other plants along the way - mainly, Teddy thought, to keep the foggy silence from being oppressive. They reached a point where the natural path branched off in two directions.

"Where do you think you went?" Professor Longbottom asked.

Teddy frowned. One branch veered slightly west, the other sharply east. Had he started to go back toward the castle in the end, or gone deeper into the Forest? "I was limping by then," he said. "I'd probably go on the side I was lurching toward."

"All right."

"I could be wrong," Teddy admitted. "It's just a guess."

Professor Longbottom smiled. "I'll keep that in mind."

Teddy considered protesting further, to forestall disappointment if it turned out that they had to retrace their steps, but decided it would sound like he assumed Professor Longbottom would think he was right, which was big-headed. Instead, he took a few tentative steps on the westerly path. Ahead, he could see it going up a rather steep incline. It could have been one of the places where he'd lost his balance, stumbled, and cut himself. More to the point, going up the hill seemed more logical when you were looking for a place where bedrock broke through the soil. The Forest sloped gently down toward the school, for the most part, from silt washing off of rocks over the years. He could see the rise from the castle windows.

He reached the sharp incline and scrambled up it. Professor Longbottom came after him. From here, they were a bit above the main part of the fog, and could see it below, snaking through the trees like choker vines. Here, the air was crisp, and there was frost glittering on the winter-bare branches. A flash of green on the ground caught Teddy's eye and he bent down.

"It's a quill," he said. "Green and gold. One of Aunt Ginny's Harpies quills. I must have dropped it." He thought about picking it up, but on closer inspection, it seemed to have rotted over the wet winter, and accumulated quite a collection of chizpurfles.

"We're on the right path, then," Professor Longbottom said. "I think it's been a while since anyone else has been, though. It's quite overgrown. I don't even see traces of the centaurs."

Teddy stopped and looked around. "That's true. I wonder why."

Professor Longbottom shrugged. "Maybe it was Unplottable as well. Maybe when Harry and I hid the spiders' hollow, it happened to overlap an old spell, and when we released it, they released together."

"That would be a big coincidence."

"There've been stranger ones." Professor Longbottom started moving again. "Hermione Weasley thinks that magic attracts magic. That's why things tend to happen in the same places over and over. She said there are places even Muggles are drawn to after a while. It's all just a guess, though." He looked over his shoulder and grinned. "She could be wrong."

Teddy smiled back dutifully, and filed the information away. He wondered if things like that were studied in the Universe division, and if Maddie knew what Hermione thought.

Which was silly to think about. Given his manifest failure with the Maze, he doubted he'd be asking _any_ questions at the Department of Mysteries in the near - or far - future.

"I think I need to do some thinking before my Careers Advice meeting," Teddy said.

"That would put you several thoughts ahead of most fifth years."

"Did you tell Professor McGonagall that you wanted to be a teacher?"

"No. I told her I wanted to be an Auror, like my parents."

"Oh."

"I expected her to tell me I'd fail miserably, but she said she thought I'd be reasonably good at it, though she didn't think I'd ever get the Potions marks from old Snape to actually make it in. But she _also_ said that she didn't think I'd be happy in the job, even if I miraculously passed my Potions O.W.L. Of course, I just didn't think I'd be happy with another two years of Snape. In the end, she nudged me into Herbology, which was where I wanted to be anyway."

They reached another incline, and didn't talk as they scrambled up it. Teddy could understand now why he'd had so many aches and pains on top of whatever magical damage he'd done to himself with the Maze. "How did you end up teaching?"

"Why all the questions?"

"I don't know."

He shrugged again. "I don't, either. I was helping Harry and Ron at the Ministry - Kingsley wanted all of us for the clean-up. I'm not sure if you remember us all together at the Burrow; you weren't even four when I dropped that."

Teddy wasn't sure he remembered, either, though his mind cheerfully supplied him with very detailed images of being passed around Molly Weasley's kitchen table by giants with red robes on. He said nothing.

"The whole time, though, I'd kept going back to Hogwarts. I finished my seventh year. I helped start the re-building. I just wanted to scrub every stone. McGonagall was in charge, though she still called herself Deputy Headmistress for reasons of her own. And when she said that she was retiring, and Professor Sprout moved up to the office, she asked if I'd like to stay on, and I said yes. As long as I could be more like Lupin than like Snape. She quite agreed."

"Do you teach like my dad taught?" Teddy asked, thinking of Dean's mural.

"It's a bit difficult to teach Herbology like Defense Against the Dark Arts, I'm afraid." Professor Longbottom smiled. "But I flatter myself in thinking that he'd find nothing objectionable in my classes."

"I wish I wanted to be a teacher. Everyone wants me to be Professor Lupin. They don't say it, but..."

"But they wish it. Of course they do; they loved him. We all did. And I'm sure Robards and Kingsley hold out a dear hope that you'll change your mind and be an Auror, because they loved your mother, and want you finish up her life."

Teddy watched his feet as they turned absently down a bend in the path. He'd always heard that he was somehow what made it all right that his parents were dead - "They're inside you" and all that rot - but no one had ever put it quite so succinctly. If he didn't finish their lives, who would? Perhaps he should start out as an Auror, for Mum, then, once he'd had some experience in the field, come back to Hogwarts, for Dad, when Robards retired.

His head buzzed steadily with this, and some horrible, childish voice cried that it wasn't _fair_ , that they ought to be finishing their own lives, and who would finish _his_ , and...

"Teddy?"

"Hmm?"

Professor Longbottom stopped walking. "You'd make a stellar Auror, and an even better teacher - don't bother saying you can't really teach again; I've seen you do it, and you're phenomenal. There are any number of adults who would be sentimentally pleased by either choice. But I don't think your parents would be among them, unless it's what _you_ need to do. As Ted Remus Lupin, not as Remus John Lupin or Nymphadora Andromeda Tonks. They already lived the lives they chose, however obscenely shortened." He turned and started walking again. "And that's my thought for this morning. Take it as you will."

Teddy's head was swimming. "Is that my Careers Advice session?"

"No. Careers Advice is quite a dull recitation of what N.E.W.T.s you need to worry about. That was just... small talk on a foggy morning. Which isn't all that foggy up here."

He'd climbed to the top of a ridge and stepped around a boulder, and Teddy could now see bright sunshine on the path.

Teddy swallowed hard and followed him up the path and around the boulder. The land here plunged into another hollow, this one filled with old undergrowth and exposed tree roots. One, near the top, jutted out over the path. It was this one that Teddy had caught his foot on, sending him flying.

Beyond the crushed and rotting undergrowth, a vast expanse of exposed bedrock jutted up from the ground. Teddy remembered climbing it that night, sitting at the top with the Marauder's Map and realizing that he was beyond its boundaries. And he remembered being here in the Maze, watching Jeremiah Galdreward accidentally kill his own brother after setting the Quarantine.

He looked at Professor Longbottom and nodded. Together, they went down into the hollow. They stopped at the lowest point and looked up.

"Do you know what to do?" Teddy asked.

Professor Longbottom nodded. "Students aren't the only ones making late night visits to the Restricted Section. Daniel actually found it, though Professor Morse had to work through the spell, naturally."

"So... what do we do? Or did you want to send for one of the other teachers?"

"Do _you_ want to explain how to get here?"

"Good point. I guess you could do it yourself."

"No, it's a two-person spell. That's so that no one can just panic and break the Quarantine." Professor Longbottom went to the up thrust of granite. "We just need to find the exact spot. I know you haven't had classes in nonverbal spells, but have you done any work on them?"

"Not really. Can I help, anyway?"

"Of course you can. The breaking spell is verbal, and I can charm your hands to help with the search." He ran his hand over the rock. "You said that when you were in the Maze, the brightest light was here?"

Teddy nodded. "Somewhere near the top."

"Of course." Professor Longbottom reached up as high as he could tapping the rock with his wand, and said, "This could be tedious for a moment. I'm sorry. I was never as quick at this as Harry and Ron. Hermione tried to teach me, but..." He shrugged.

"It's all right. I don't even know _how_ to do it."

"Sure you do. It's a lot like what we did in the Room of Requirement. Do you remember when I told you to feel it working in the floor?"

"Yes."

"Well, that's the basic business." He gestured for Teddy to hold out his hands, and tapped them with his wand. "That just makes you a little more sensitive. A good Auror can find a spot quickly and tell you exactly what spell was done there, but anyone can find magic with a little practice and a lot of time. Come over here."

Teddy went to him and, when urged, spread his fingers out against the rock. "What am I looking for?"

"You'll know if you find it."

Teddy rather doubted this - and felt quite silly creeping around the rock face and kneading the moss - but he concentrated as well as he could on the task.

It wasn't that he couldn't feel anything. Now and then, he came across a tingle of energy against his palm, or an itchy sort of feeling in his fingertips. Once, he felt a tickling sensation on his wrist, but that turned out to be a small spider he'd disturbed. He chanced a glance at Professor Longbottom to see if he was doing this properly, but couldn't really tell. Professor Longbottom was just hunched over a large nodule on the rock, tracing it.

Teddy turned back to his own examination, climbing higher bit by bit, waiting to hear Professor Longbottom shout out that he'd found something, or tactfully suggest that they switch places and go over one another's areas, in case "one of us" had missed something.

Then he stumbled over it.

There was no warning as he approached the spot, no gradual increase in power. He simply set his hand down, a palm's length from where it had been, and he found it. The spell twisted through the granite like a trapped and writhing eel. He remembered the vision in the Maze, of the potion exploding outward into stars like fireworks, alighting in trees, and here on the rock, leading up to...

He raised his eyes, unconsciously pressing his hand down on the powerful thread in the stone. There was a niche a few yards above him.

"I've got it!" he said.

Professor Longbottom dropped his search and scrambled over the wet and mossy slope to where Teddy was. "Here?" he asked.

Teddy nodded.

Professor Longbottom touched the stone briefly with his fingertips, then with his wand. " _Revelo!_ "

A twisting rope of yellow light raced up the rock, bursting at the niche above, then arcing out in all directions, toward the walls that enclosed Hogwarts.

"There you are," Professor Longbottom said. "Teddy, meet Galdreward's Quarantine."

Together, they made the rest of the climb, following the pulsing line of light to the shadowed niche. Teddy wondered what the other students could see through the windows at the castle.

"Now what?" he asked.

"It's actually quite simple. _Finite Incantatem_ , both at the same time, aimed at this point."

"That's all?"

"That's all. I thought it would be more complicated, but the reference Daniel found said that Galdreward wanted to take into account the possibility that if it got to the point where plague victims had to seek help, it was likely that whatever wizard cast the spell was dead. So he made it simple. He just neglected to mention _where_ he cast it this time."

"Maurice says he never spoke again at all."

"Yes, well. He might have needed to, if they hadn't cured their plague at the time. Curing it lifts the Quarantine naturally."

"Oh." Teddy bit his lip. "What'll happen when we do this?"

"Hopefully, nothing dramatic. We should see the lines disappear. But it's an old spell, and a powerful one. It might release a bit of energy when it goes. Did Harry ever tell you what happened when we broke the curses on the Inferi lake?"

"No. I overheard something when I was little - Granny wanted to bury Regulus Black properly, but Uncle Harry told her that a lot of the bodies were too damaged, and they couldn't tell which he was. She was angry."

"The lake boiled," Professor Longbottom said simply. "There were at least twenty bodies we couldn't even begin to identify. And I'm just bringing it up because that happened when we released an old spell. I doubt this will be anything quite so drastic, since it didn't start out as a Dark spell, but be prepared, in case it's not just a simple _Finite._ "

Teddy nodded. Every muscle in his body had tensed; he didn't know if it was nerves or the power of the spell.

"All right, then," Professor Longbottom said. "On my signal." He lowered his wand toward the now-glowing niche, and Teddy followed suit. The looked at one another, then Professor Longbottom nodded.

" _Finite Incantatem!_ " they said together.

The lines in the sky disappeared, but the ball of light at the center, in the niche, glowed even brighter as it drew them into itself. The light breeze stopped, and the spell gave off slow pulses.

"Is it done?" Teddy asked.

"I don't think so."

Finally, the light began to shrink, pulling in further on itself. Teddy took a deep breath, letting himself relax a little. "We did - "

In a silent pulse, the ball of light blew outward again, blasting through the hollow. Teddy felt himself thrown backward from the rock, landing in the soft ferns below. He saw Professor Longbottom fly through the air on the other side and slide down the side of the rock, dazed. The air was full of a curiously solid white light that buffeted the trees. One of them, icy and winter weak, cracked under the strain and crashed down only a foot from where Teddy lay. The earth itself rumbled ominously as the wave of released power rolled through it like a great wave in the ocean.

Finally, it passed through its origin, and the hollow was still, though Teddy could hear it crashing on through the rest of the Forest, heading toward the castle and the lake and the walls themselves.

They had to get back.

He rolled over, but couldn't get to his feet because his legs were shaking with nerves. He crawled toward the rock. "Professor Longbottom?" he called. "Can you hear me?"

His voice came weakly. "Over here."

"Are you all right?" Teddy asked, speeding up.

"I broke a rib, but I've got it healed." His voice was growing stronger now, and when Teddy came around the bend at the bottom of the rock, he was pulling himself to his feet. "We need to get back," he said.

Teddy nodded. "I don't think I can do the path." This wasn't entirely true - the shaking in his legs had slowed, and he thought they'd be back to their regular strength soon - but he didn't think Professor Longbottom could make it. The fall from the rock seemed to have dazed him. " _Accio_ our broomsticks!"

He wasn't sure they'd make it through the wave, but it was apparently past them now, since they came zooming into the hollow only seconds later. Carefully, Teddy helped Professor Longbottom onto his, then got onto his own. They rose above the trees.

Below, he could see a roughly circular path of broken trees and flattened undergrowth. Far in the distance, the surface of the lake was churning. The castle was in one piece, though Teddy could see broken glass glittering in the grass under the walls, and people running frantically around. And from the center of Gryffindor Tower, a disturbing but oddly beautiful latticework of light was spilling from a dormitory window.

From _his_ dormitory window, Teddy realized.

He and Professor Longbottom looked at one another anxiously, then turned toward the castle and flew as fast as they could.


	24. The World Beyond The Walls

**Chapter 24:**

 **The World Beyond The Walls**

Teddy leaned in low on his broomstick, urging it to go faster, racing for the window.

"Teddy!" Professor Longbottom yelled. "What are you doing?"

"It's the Maze!" Teddy called back. "It's doing something!"

Professor Longbottom caught up with him and circled around in front of him, forcing him to a stop. "Let's not fly straight into it, all right?"

Teddy took a few breaths, then nodded. "But I have to go. My cat's in there." The words sounded stupid the moment they came from his mouth, but he couldn't very well take them back.

"We'll both go. My students are in there. But let's go _carefully._ "

"Right. All right."

Teddy allowed himself to be turned off course, and they flew together to the front steps, where the Headmistress and Professor McGonagall had both spotted them, and were waiting.

"Quarantine's down," Professor Longbottom said.

The Headmistress gave him a distracted wave of her hand. "I guessed as much, and I've sent for Healers from St. Mungo's. Which is a good thing, as the Slytherin and Hufflepuff tables were overturned in that little display, and we have any number of rather deep cuts from broken glass. The merchieftain is reporting some serious tail injuries from the jostling of the lake."

"I probably did something wrong," Teddy said, just wanting to get upstairs.

"You were fine," Professor Longbottom demurred. "There was no other way to break the Quarantine. We had to take the risk. You knew we might, Headmistress." He looked at her steadily.

"Yes, yes, all right."

Professor Longbottom waited a minute, then said, "There's damage to Gryffindor Tower. I should see to it, and Lupin wants to check on his cat."

This earned a smile from Professor McGonagall. "Your students are well, Professor Longbottom," she said. "I've not forgotten how to look after Gryffindor House. You'll find them in the antechamber outside the Great Hall. I've told Scrimgeour to let no one out. And Mr. Lupin, Victoire Weasley saw to your cat, so you really ought to join them there."

Teddy looked at Professor Longbottom, who nodded and moved closer to the others. "There's another problem," he said, and pointed up at Teddy's window. "Teddy thinks that's coming from the Maze. That thing's caused a good deal of difficulty already, and Teddy's the only one here who knows anything about it. We need to look at it."

Headmistress Sprout looked flustered, but said, "Very well, Longbottom. But Mr. Lupin, now that the Quarantine is down, I would greatly appreciate it if you'd call for help, and get that thing off Hogwarts grounds."

"Yes, Ma'am," Teddy said. "I'll do that now." He raised his wand and sent his Patronus off to Maddie, telling her that the Quarantine was down and he needed help with the Maze.

Professor McGonagall insisted on going up to Gryffindor Tower with them, so they were three abreast as they climbed the stairs to Teddy's room and stood in front of his door. The strange light was spilling out under it. Absurdly, Teddy thought, _I'm going to have to re-do all of my homework._

He reached out to open his door, but Professor Longbottom put a hand in front of him and shook his head. "Let us go first," he said.

"But - "

"We're responsible for your safety," Professor McGonagall said. "You are not responsible for ours."

Feeling chagrined, Teddy stepped back, and tried to remember if he'd left any underwear on the floor for them to see.

Professor Longbottom tented the fingers on his left hand and raised his wand with his right. Professor McGonagall stepped to the side of the door that would open, and aimed her wand at it.

The door opened.

Light spilled into the hallway, twining around them like George Weasley's Valentine fireworks, but nothing else happened. The professors looked at each other warily and lowered their wands.

Teddy followed them inside.

The room was considerably messier than it had been when he'd left this morning. Papers from his desk, which he'd been keeping in the neat piles Victoire had made in the autumn, were strewn over the floor, as the desk had been thrown rudely against the wall. A picture of Teddy with the Potter children had fallen and the glass had cracked (Lily and James were taking turns swatting at a glass crumb), and the chair was on its side. This was minor damage.

On the far side of the room, the wardrobe had been upended entirely and dropped unceremoniously to the floor, spilling out his clothes, his shoes, and the Daedalus Maze. The Maze had cracked along its old fault line, then burst outward as it hit his trunk. Two sides were nearly obliterated, and Teddy could actually see inside of it - a crystal ball, wound about with spells and suspended in a lattice of silver filaments From it poured all of the flickering, dancing light in the room.

"What is it doing?" Professor McGonagall asked.

Teddy took a step toward it. "I don't know."

"Looks like a Pensieve," Professor Longbottom offered.

Teddy didn't think it looked exactly like a Pensieve, which generally contained misty and unformed shapes instead of these sharply defined, delicate structures, but he could see what Professor Longbottom was getting at. "How do you empty a Pensieve?" he asked.

"The same spell you use to collect memories," Professor McGonagall said. " _Concresco Cogitatonus_. But you need something to put it in, even if that were to work, and there's nothing big enough."

Professor Longbottom raised his eyebrows. "What about Dumbledore's Pensieve? If it could hold all of _his_ thoughts, it's got to have quite a capacity."

Teddy bit his lip, then said, "I'm not sure it's the same thing, and it could break the Pensieve if it isn't. I think we should wait for Maddie."

Professor McGonagall nodded curtly. "You know more about this than we do," she said. "I'll defer to your judgment, Mr. Lupin."

Teddy blinked at her, not realizing until she said it that he'd simply expected that she and Professor Longbottom would take over. Having his own judgment deferred to was disorienting. He felt he ought to do something wise, but he couldn't think of anything.

To cover, he bent down to examine one of the delicate light structures. This one was dancing between his trunk and his bed. Looking closely into it, he thought he could see faces in the shadows, moving through some arcane time that only the Maze really understood.

"Teddy," Professor Longbottom said, "perhaps you should back off."

"I don't think it's..."

The little structure suddenly swirled. Teddy felt a painless tug, then found himself flying over a country road, and someone was thinking, _I shall kill the queen_ , and the scene changed, and he was somewhere else entirely, a pub where witches in gay holiday robes danced with drunken wizards under charmed mistletoe, and then he was in an alley, picking through the rubbish, and then he was -

"TEDDY!"

The voice that pulled him back was neither Professor Longbottom's nor Professor McGonagall's. For a moment, it seemed to be Mum's, and in the Maze-light, it seemed perfectly rational to think that. In a way, he supposed it _was_ Mum's voice, or one of the voices she'd always had for him.

Maddie Apcarne yanked him backward.

"Are you all right?" she asked.

Teddy shook himself free, both of Maddie and of the visions in the Mazelight. The professors were standing back, though they didn't look happy about it. "I think so. Yes. Maddie, I'm sorry, it broke, and I - "

"It's all right."

"The Headmistress wants it off the grounds."

Maddie pressed her lips together grimly. "I don't blame her." She twitched her wand, and a black box flew in from the corridor. "This is a containment box, Teddy. We use them at the Department when things go wrong. We have to get the Maze into it."

"I'm sorry. I - "

She shook her head curtly. "This isn't anything you did. This is physical damage." She shook her head. "I don't know how to fix it, though."

"Is there anything we can do?" Professor Longbottom asked.

"Not that I can think of." Maddie rubbed her forehead. "No, wait. Make sure none of the other students starts looking into this. Teddy knows how to get in and out. They don't."

Professor McGonagall and Professor Longbottom left, leaving Teddy alone with Maddie and the Maze.

She muttered to herself and opened the black box. It was plain and had no special markings that Teddy could see on the inside or the outside.

"Professor McGonagall thought perhaps we could gather the thoughts like we would for a Pensieve," he said.

"It may be worth a try," Maddie said. "If they don't come with the Maze, we'll have to try it."

"How bad is this?" Teddy asked.

Maddie stopped fiddling with the box and thought about it. "I don't know. It might be nothing."

"I guess I'd best look into another career."

"Why on Earth would you do that?" Maddie asked, looking genuinely surprised. She shook her head in disbelief, then beckoned to him. "I need you to keep the box open. _Adaperio_ , if it tries to close. I'll get the small pieces first, then get the main part of the Maze. Hopefully, the memories go in obediently." Teddy nodded. Maddie squared her shoulders and took a deep breath. "And Teddy, if I start to go strange, looking into those things... pull me out."

"All right."

"Are you ready?"

Teddy gripped the top of the containment box tightly enough to turn his fingers white, and nodded.

For the first few minutes, his tension spiraled inside him until he felt the slightest touch would send him running through the castle wall. But Maddie remained calm, talking about Carny and Mac and asking after Frankie as she picked up the slivers of the Maze's case and averting her eyes from the brighter parts of the Mazelight, and slowly, the muscles in Teddy's shoulders relaxed. Once, her voice trailed off when her eyes happened on a glowing strand, but before Teddy decided that it was time to take action, she shook herself off and continued on her search. Each handful of slivers was tossed into the containment box, which shivered slightly with the small impacts.

She reached the main body of the Maze and looked up. Her chatter about the children stopping abruptly. "All right, Teddy. I'm going to pick it up now. I don't want to chance Levitation. The light _should_ follow it. Be ready."

Teddy braced himself.

Maddie Conjured gloves for herself, then grasped the two less-damaged sides of the Maze firmly and yanked it up from the floor. Teddy could see a greater strain in her muscles than the Maze's scant weight should have produced. She moved toward him.

The containment box tried to close. Teddy forced it open with his hands, then said, " _Adoperia_." It opened reluctantly.

Maddie reached it and threw the main body of the Maze inside. A few tendrils of light followed, filling the box with an eerily beautiful silver glow, and Teddy thought it was going to work.

Until the Mazelight started snapping like harp wires wound too tight.

"Dammit!" Maddie yelled, getting to her feet. "Teddy, we have to get this inside!" She jabbed her wand at one of the ropes, but it swerved around her and dissipated into the wall between two of James's incomprehensible drawings. In one of them, a red square with feet that had been labeled "Martian" ran up the edge of the paper like it had been doused with cold water. Maddie grimaced. "Try McGonagall's idea. Just like you were gathering memories for a Pensieve."

"I've never done that!"

" _Concresco Cogitatonus_ ," Maddie reminded him. "And concentrate. Then drag them to the box if it works. The release is just _Emancipo._ "

Teddy pointed his wand at a nearby light rope and said, " _Concresco Cogitatonus_." The light turned and looked at him. It had no more consciousness than a firefly, but no less palpable life. It reached toward him, found the tip of his wand, and began to wind around it in a glowing ball. When it had nearly become big enough to swallow the whole wand, Teddy pulled it to the containment box and said, " _Emancipo._ " It slid away from the wand and curled down in the box beside the Maze.

There was no time to admire his handiwork, though, as Maddie barreled in with another full wand, and poured its contents into the box. Together, they worked for ten minutes at this, but the sheer amount of light in the room didn't seem to lessen.

Maddie signaled him to stop. "We've got to be feeding it somehow," she said. "Or the Maze is. Let's shut the box. Maybe they'll die on their own without it."

"What if they just get away?"

She pressed her lips together grimly. "Then we might have some overflow. Hopefully, it will dissipate. But if it doesn't work, I can go back to the Ministry, and we can put everyone onto the problem. Maybe Professor Sprout would let you come to London - "

"Me?"

"You've done more with this tool than anyone I've ever heard of, Teddy. I think you qualify as a Daedalus Maze expert."

This was not a comforting thought, and Teddy didn't answer it. Instead, he went back to the box and broke the spell he'd used to hold it wide open. With a decisive _snick_ , it sealed itself.

The light ropes fell to the floor and began to writhe in what Teddy interpreted as pain. In his mind, he saw severed limbs and blood and heard the wailing on the battlefield that had once raged below. Covering his ears didn't shut this out.

The light drew in and swirled into the shape of a galaxy, then shattered and blew away.

The room was still and silent.

Maddie pulled Teddy's hands down from his ears. "It's the best we can do," she said.

"I don't think it's done," Teddy said.

"It's not. But I think we've got the center trapped. I'm going to take it back to London, where we can study it in more controlled conditions."

"What about the bits that got away?"

"I don't know, Teddy. But I'll have people up here looking into it. They'll want to talk to you, if something goes wrong because of it, but it's not your responsibility."

Teddy nodded.

Maddie pinched his chin and made him look up, as she had once when he'd been very small and he and Frankie had accidentally broken the birdbath in the garden. He'd been certain she'd send him home and never let him play there again, but she'd just said, "Things break. They're just things. Don't cry over them." This time, she said, "The world is round, Teddy. There's no end of it."

Teddy bit his lip. "At least until the sun gets sucked into a black hole in the middle of the galaxy."

"I sincerely doubt that that'll be your fault, either." She grinned and winked, despite her pallor. Teddy couldn't help returning it.

"Teddy!" someone called from down in the Common Room. "Teddy are you all right?"

Teddy frowned and called. "Uncle Harry?"

Footsteps thundered up the stairs outside - it sounded like he was taking them two at a time - and then Uncle Harry burst into the room. He grabbed Teddy by the shoulders and hugged him, then let him go and nodded gratefully at Maddie. "Sprout wouldn't let me come up here until we saw the light disappear. Is everything all right?"

"We don't know," Maddie said quickly. "But we'll take care of it if it isn't."

Uncle Harry looked vexed at this, but didn't say anything. He turned back to Teddy, then hugged him again, like he was eight and had broken his ankle climbing around the rocks at Shell Cottage instead of putting Hogwarts into Quarantine for months.

He finally let go. "You grew," he said.

"I guess so," Teddy said.

"I'm so glad to see you." Uncle Harry shook his head. "But I suppose fifteen is a bit old for the old godfather to be making such a fuss, isn't it? Your grandmother came with the St. Mungo's Healers; she's in the hospital wing, and I imagine she'd like to see you, and I should warn you that she'll make me look stoic and stone-faced."

Teddy took a step back, disoriented, and glanced at Maddie. She took the hint and left without another word.

"Is something wrong?" Uncle Harry asked.

"No, it's just that we... well, we were quarreling. Aren't you still angry?"

"I'll never be angry enough at you to not be glad to see you after four months of quarantine." He frowned. "Are _you_ still angry?"

Teddy hadn't given much thought to the actual subject of the quarrel - Uncle Harry's insistence that he should just accept Mum and Dad's deaths, like they were no more than a day's bad weather ruining a picnic, and not do whatever he could to rectify it - and found that some small part of his heart _did_ still harbor an ember of anger, but he decided that he could choose not to fan it. He shook his head. "How is everyone?" he asked. "I'm sorry about... er... when I sent Phineas..."

"Don't worry about it," Uncle Harry said, and started to lead the way out. "We've moved the landscape out into the corridor, though."

"Good." Teddy followed him down the stairs. "How is everyone? Aunt Ginny? The kids? Is Martian getting along with Lily's dog?"

As they wound their way down to the hospital wing and away from any uncomfortable subjects, Uncle Harry filled him in. Rose Weasley and Al were trying to run a secret society for seven-year-olds, and had taken to speaking to each other in a "code language" that consisted of adding "eth" to the end of every verb. Lily was proudly walking her dog around Grimmauld Place, and even taking care of its messes. Martian had initially hissed and yowled at it, but had finally decided that it was more dignified to just ignore it. James had written several chapters of a novel. He'd been reading each day's pages to the family after supper. "Quite good, really," Uncle Harry said. "At least I think so. And the hero is a shapeshifting wizard knight who carries two wands and rides a hippogriff."

"Really?"

"He misses your letters terribly."

"I'll write him one right away. And letters for the others, too. Are you staying? I could just send them back with you - "

"No, I'm not staying," Uncle Harry said. "I came to check on you, but I've got a miserable case back in London."

"Oh."

"You should come home for Easter, though. I know you usually don't, but we missed Christmas, and there are presents waiting."

They came around the door of the hospital wing, and Teddy could see several St. Mungo's Healers in bright green robes, pouring potions down the throats of plague victims who were now awake. Daniel fretted from one to the other.

One of the green-robed figures broke away, and Teddy barely had time to recognize Granny and think, _She's got gray!_ before her arms were around him.

Granny barely let him get far enough away to breathe for a few seconds, but finally straightened her shoulders and stood back to look at him.

To look _up_ at him.

Teddy blinked. He'd been getting close to Granny's height in September. When had he got taller?

She put her hands on his arms. "Oh, thank God. You're all right. I don't think I could stand losing you."

"I was never sick," Teddy said.

"You could have been, and I couldn't have got here." Granny frowned, then looked over her shoulder at Daniel. "I need to take a few minutes," she said.

Daniel waved her out. "Madam Pomfrey'll be up and around in a minute. She'll have it all sorted out."

Teddy looked beyond him, and saw Madam Pomfrey sitting up in bed, drinking a potion, her nose wrinkled at the taste. She swallowed, then said, "For heaven's sake, Andromeda, you're nearly retired. Take as long as you'd like."

"I'll be back to help," Granny said, then steered Teddy and Uncle Harry both out to the corridor. Uncle Harry gave Teddy a quick hug, then left, smiling at Granny. Granny sat Teddy down on a bench and leaned forward, her elbows on her knees.

Teddy touched her shoulder. "Sorry, Granny," he said. "I, er... I didn't mean to worry you."

"What am I going to do when you grow up?" she asked. "A few months of not being able to write to you, and I'm quite mad with missing you. What will I do when you've gone away and have a whole world of your own, and I don't know what you're doing in it?"

"Why would that happen?" Teddy asked. "I'm not going to start another quarantine."

"Never mind," she said and sat up straight, pushing her hair back over her ears. It wasn't as gray as Teddy had thought when he'd first seen her - there was quite a lot of light brown left in the softly rolled bun at the nape of her neck - but her fringe had changed entirely. She wasn't an old woman, but Teddy realized with some shock that she had to be close to the same age that Mad Auntie had been when her gray-haired portrait had been painted. Which had only been a short time before her death.

He took her hand and squeezed it. "So... I haven't heard anything. How are you?"

"Fine." She patted his hand with the one he wasn't holding. "Worried, of course. Ellsworth reminded me that we'd heard no bad news from the Ministry - Harry had the portraits go through every day - but of course..." She sighed. "You're all I have left of Ted and Dora. I suppose that makes me worry too much. And before you start to, don't apologize. That's my problem."

Teddy smiled tentatively, not entirely sure what to say. He finally came out with, "How's Ellsworth?"

"Insistent," Granny said. "I'm afraid we've only recently started speaking again after Christmas. He knows that there are matters I'm not willing to discuss." She gave him a forced smile, and changed the subject. "As long as we're on the subject, whose heart have you broken this year? Other than your poor Uncle Harry's, of course." She looked at him shrewdly, and he realized that she knew they'd quarreled, but had no idea what the quarrel had been about - none at all.

If he told her, he was quite certain that she'd be on his side. She'd probably be just as angry as he'd been about Uncle Harry's high-handedness. Maybe even more - she'd been an adult, after all, his elder, and he'd never told her she might have a chance to speak to her only child again.

But a silent voice in his head stopped him. Granny didn't need to know about the Stone. He could handle being angry at Uncle Harry himself. He couldn't handle Granny being angry at him. So he shrugged. "It was the usual," he said. "The same thing you always used to tell me, about being stuck in the past."

She accepted this equitably enough, and didn't push. She'd come to her own peace with Teddy's interest in the past, but wasn't likely to rush to his side in a battle on the subject. "Well, that's your affair," she said. "Have you been seeing Ruth again?"

"No. She's working very hard this year."

Granny pressed a bit harder, and Teddy admitted to his Hogsmeade visit with Jane before the Quarantine, but didn't fold when Granny guessed that there was someone else he was interested in. Finally, he turned his nose up, morphed his hair and face to match hers, and said, "There are matters I'm not willing to discuss."

She laughed lightly, and by the time Madam Pomfrey walked out, looking weak and pale, things seemed normal again. Granny needed to go back into the hospital wing to help with the follow-up, and Teddy went back to Gryffindor Tower.

Over the next two weeks, the post owls delivered record numbers of letters and packages. There was nearly a February Christmas celebration. Professor Morse suggested a party to welcome back the newly recovered plague victims, and it was held on the last Friday... with a great deal of attention paid this time to any figure that might not belong.

There were no more phantasms - at least not that anyone had noticed - but on a few occasions, Teddy was certain that _something_ was out of place. Newly replaced walls seemed, for a moment, to be hoary with age again, portraits might (or might not) have flickered in and out of view, the fireflower in the swamp began to shoot out tendrils. But the first two might have been his imagination, and the last may have been perfectly normal. No one had found anything unusual about the fireflower, after all, other than its provenance.

He brewed Wolfsbane for Neil again, but at the end of the month, instead of going to the Room of Requirement, Neil again went into Hogsmeade with Madam Pomfrey, and Flooed out to France. Père Alderman brought him back two days later, both of them looking horrible. Alderman sat with Teddy for a long time that evening, skirting around the topic of everything that had gone wrong. Teddy had a mad urge to confess, which would hardly have done anything, as Alderman couldn't absolve him anyway, so he didn't ask. Nevertheless, Père Alderman suggested that he'd get something out of helping the plague victims catch up on their schoolwork, so he set up revision sessions three times a week in the library. Frankie, who didn't want to let Tinny out of his sight now that she was well, helped with these.

Gryffindor celebrated the beginning of March - coming in like a lion - with a resounding defeat of Slytherin on the Quidditch pitch, and in the course of the celebratory party, Teddy found himself dancing with a fourth year Gryffindor girl named Karen Diorbhall - "It's supposed to be pronounced in Gaelic," she said, "but you can just call me 'Doorbell'; my other friends do" - who he went out with for four days before she got bored with him and moved on to one of Story's friends in Ravenclaw. Neither Ruthless nor Victoire offered him any comfort in the wake of Doorbell's desertion. Victoire, in fact, entertained herself immensely by hitting him with any Wheeze that made bell sounds. He suspected that she wrote to George for suggestions on this.

Classes went on, as they had throughout the Quarantine, though Gardner returned to Transfiguration, and Trelawney returned to Divination. Teddy found that he missed Professor McGonagall, even though he'd always been fond of Gardner. In Care of Magical Creatures, Dapple was flying regularly now, making circuits of Hagrid's hut, then coming down in the muddy paddock and bowing for applause (much to Buckbeak's continued embarrassment). "'E'll be ready to give yeh a ride soon, I reckon," Hagrid said, but Teddy didn't care about riding Dapple. He was watching Dapple's wings, watching the way they moved, imagining the way the air moved under them. Donzo was trying to get him through the last stages, and hadn't quite been able to convey what he meant, but he seemed to think it was important to think about flight and wings and birds. He was also increasingly embarrassed by Teddy's inability to grasp the thing, and his teaching was flustered and inconsistent. Ruthless listened, stunned, to one of his attempts at articulating what he'd done the day he'd cracked the Animagus spell, and asked if he'd meant to be speaking English, or if they were meant to have learned a foreign language as well. He started attending Teddy's revision sessions, claiming that he wanted to learn how to teach. Teddy thought he was kidding, but he appeared to be perfectly serious about it. It didn't help.

A note appeared at the breakfast table on the Ides of March ("Beware!" Ruthless said, grinning). It was from Professor Longbottom.

 _Teddy,  
You're my only fifth year, and it seems a bit absurd to post a schedule in the Common Room for your Careers Advice session. Please come to my office at three o'clock on Monday, after your Care of Magical Creatures class. We should be finished before your session in the library.  
Professor N. Longbottom_

It was Saturday morning, and the next two days passed very slowly, despite a prodigious amount of homework, a long Sunday game of Muggles and Minions (Tinny claimed to have spent her time in stasis dreaming up new scenarios), and a pile of stories from James to get through. The others in the year all had their appointments as well. Maurice pointed out, morbidly, that it would be the first year in Hogwarts history that all of the Careers Advice sessions would be finished by third Wednesday in March. Honoria Higgs went first, as Rita Skeeter and the editor-in-chief of the _Daily Prophet_ had made special arrangements to come and speak to her. She ducked out of History of Magic at eleven, as Binns droned on about a troll revolt, and Teddy dearly wished, at that moment, that he had a burning interest in journalism as well.

Instead, he fidgeted through the remained of the class, picked at his lunch, and barely listened to Hagrid expounding on the proper retrieval of wand-grade unicorn-tail hairs. At three, he ran back up the hill to the castle, and arrived at Professor Longbottom's plant-filled office at five minutes before three.

The door opened.

Professor Longbottom was sitting at his desk. Beside him were Maddie Apcarne, an older man in sharp business robes... and Granny and Uncle Harry.

Teddy frowned and went inside.


	25. Tests

**Chapter 25:**

 **Tests**

Teddy looked from one face to another, then swallowed hard and took a step inside, closing the door behind him. Professor Longbottom offered him a chair, and he took it, wondering if this was how Uncle Harry had felt in a chair with the whole Wizengamot facing him down.

"Is... er... is this" - he pointed to them - "entirely _usual_? I know Honoria had to see Rita Skeeter, but..."

Professor Longbottom laughed. "No. Higgs was interested in an unusual career, so her visitors came. Your career, we would normally be able to prepare you for without assistance - we have good ties to the Ministry, good lines of communication - but the circumstances aren't entirely normal." He looked at Maddie.

Maddie came around the desk and sat on the edge. "I wouldn't say this is an every year sort of career choice. I've seen perhaps six interested students in eighteen years. But we do have a procedure."

"The Daedalus Maze," Teddy said. "Which I already - "

" - have astounded us with," the older man said, standing and holding out one gnarled hand. "I don't believe we've met formally. I'm Charles Croaker, Head of the Department of Mysteries. I've been watching you with great interest since Mrs. Apcarne first brought you to us, young man, though not as closely as I might have wished this year."

Teddy shook his hand dazedly, wondering if they'd be giving him a job offer if he'd managed to kill someone with the thing.

Maddie, as usual, seemed to know what he was thinking. She laughed. "Teddy, you wouldn't have been able to do nearly the mischief you've done if you didn't have an aptitude for this sort of thing. You need training and discipline."

"Or," Uncle Harry muttered, "he needs to get away from it entirely."

"Yes, Harry, that will work perfectly," Granny said. "I know how well you did at staying away from the dangerous things that you happen to be good at."

Professor Longbottom held up his hand. "We had this argument earlier. Sorry, Teddy - I thought we could get it over with before you got here."

"It's all right," Teddy said.

"What I want to know before we go further now," Professor Longbottom went on, "is whether or not this is still what you want. Your school marks are good in all of your subjects, and there are other career paths open. If you'd prefer to talk about them, then please say so. I have no problem whatsoever sending the Ministry and Harry Potter home without supper if it's what you want." He winked.

"No, it's all right," Teddy said. "I don't know. I thought I'd done badly. But if I didn't, I... well, I _like_ this sort of thing." He focused on Professor Longbottom. "Is there anything else you think I'd be good at?"

"Many things. The primary thing I believe you'd be good at is one which we've already discussed, and which you don't care to follow up on. But you might consider a career in Wizarding law, as well, and your interest in history - granted, not in Professor Binns' class - might make you a good apprentice for the curator of the wizarding museum at Tintagel. You've also been quite a fine advocate for werewolves, and you've shown real leadership in your year. There aren't many doors closed to you, Teddy, unless you have an unspoken dream to join a professional Quidditch club. That, I'm afraid, I would have to advise you against."

"There goes my back-up plan for him," Uncle Harry said fondly.

Teddy smiled at him, then turned to Maddie. "I want to do this," he said. "The Department of Mysteries." In the end, it was exactly that simple. It was the only career he'd ever been especially interested in.

Maddie grinned and clapped. "Oh, I'm so happy!"

"That brings us to why everyone needed to come," Croaker said. "Normally, we'd have watched your process through the year more closely than we've been able to, and by now, we'd be talking about which division you might study. But because of the rather extraordinary events, we've had little chance to evaluate the way you work."

"And as the Headmistress insists that the Maze not be on school grounds..." Maddie said, and shrugged.

"We'll need to set up evaluation sessions in London," Croaker finished. "For that, we shall need permission from your guardians."

Uncle Harry wasn't actually Teddy's legal guardian - by law, Granny was raising him alone - but no one questioned his presence.

"Would this be Floo travel?" Granny asked. "Or would someone come to bring him by Side-Along Apparition?"

"Teddy can use the Floo in my office," Professor Longbottom said. "This can't conflict with his classes, particularly with O.W.L.s coming up."

There was a flurry of schedule-checking and organization, during which Teddy felt quite lost. He hoped that Frankie and Tinny would be willing to schedule games only on Sundays now, as six of his remaining Saturdays were booked. One of them was the only remaining Hogsmeade weekend, and he hadn't quite dared protest that he meant to see if he could break the year's girl-curse and find someone to stay with for a little while. Somehow, he didn't think they'd consider that a valid protest. On the more positive side, he got a dispensation from the school to go eat at Uncle Harry's on those days - Granny would come, as well - since he was away from Hogwarts anyway.

"Your classmates will all be clamoring for an apprenticeship with the Department of Mysteries," Professor Longbottom said. "Please tell them that it's only because you got behind with the Quarantine."

Teddy nodded and put his quill and calendar away, the dates neatly boxed off.

"Well, that's all we needed to be here for," Maddie said, and shook Teddy's hand eagerly. "I can't wait."

Croaker stood up and nodded somberly to Teddy. "It's been a pleasure, Mr. Lupin, and I look forward to your evaluations."

"Me, too, sir," Teddy said. It wasn't entirely true - who looked forward to a test, no matter what they called it? - but it was close enough.

Maddie and Croaker left first, and Uncle Harry and Granny left after signing several permission slips, which Professor Longbottom filed indifferently in a cluttered cabinet.

When they were alone, Professor Longbottom came around his desk and sat in the chair beside Teddy's. He Summoned two glasses of pumpkin juice and a plate of gingerbread, then a listing of Hogwarts courses.

"Well," he said, "I started looking into this when Maddie mentioned that you'd be looking at this particular career. As far as O.W.L.s, the Ministry expects at least six Exceeds Expectations, with follow-up N.E.W.T.s."

Teddy nodded. He hadn't expected it to be academically easy. "Any particular subjects?"

"They don't say so, but of course they always expect _something_."

"Sounds like guessing what they want is another test."

"If it is, Maddie seemed willing to help you cheat." Professor Longbottom took a biscuit. "I think they just like to make it sound like they're open, though. Maddie said she'd suggest staying in Divination."

"With Trelawney?"

"In the upper years, you may choose Professor Trelawney or Professor Firenze. Either one of them can guide you - N.E.W.T. Divination tends to be quite independent in nature. You might like to see some of the papers that other N.E.W.T. students have done in the subject. Madam Pince keeps them in the Restricted section."

Teddy nodded. "What else?"

"Maddie thinks you might have an interest in Time. So - "

"Binns."

"Binns," Professor Longbottom agreed, then shook his head and sighed. "There's nothing to be done for it."

"I understand."

"Good. Beyond that, Maddie thinks they'd just like to see challenging classes. Transfiguration, for instance, rather than Care of Magical Creatures. Or Potions, I'm sorry to say, instead of Herbology."

"Herbology is challenging!" Teddy protested. "And it's good for Potions, too."

"I agree, but common perception..." Professor Longbottom shrugged. "Maddie also seemed to think that Astronomy would go over well, especially for your rotation through Universe."

"I guess the sixth could be in Arithmancy," Teddy said. "Or Ancient Runes."

"Or both," Professor Longbottom said. "You _need_ six. There's no rule against taking more, and I think you could handle it."

Teddy took a sip of his juice. "Do you think it's odd that they offered this to me after I coc... er, made mistakes with the Maze? I mean, I understand the part about being good at it, but it's sort of dangerous, isn't it?"

"Probably less so than letting you do it without any supervision."

"Oh."

Professor Longbottom smiled. "I think you made the right choice."

"Really?"

"Really. This is something that's purely come from you. It's not anything you've been pressured into. I doubt Maddie so much as suggested it to you, did she?"

Teddy shook his head.

Professor Longbottom took another bite of his biscuit. "So it's yours, Teddy. It's _you_. And I think that's a good thing."

"Do you think my parents would think so?"

"Harry or your grandmother could answer that better," Professor Longbottom said. "I didn't know them nearly well enough. But from what I did know - your dad, in particular, would have wanted you to be confident and believe in what you're good at. I know it's what he wanted for his students, anyway."

"Even if it ends me up where Sirius died?"

"I don't think, in your position, that I'd have put it to him in quite those words."

This wasn't entirely definitive, but it was the best there was. They settled in with Teddy's academic records, and started planning out the rest of his school life.

"Are you kidding?" Donzo said, transforming up from his raccoon shape after a few laps of the Room of Requirement, during which Teddy had filled him in on the meeting. He Summoned a chair and sat down on it backwards. "If I break some valuable piece of Ministry property, do you think they'd let me go to Weird World for supper?"

Ruthless, who was lying on her back lazily tossing marshmallows into a rubbish bin she'd Conjured, rolled her eyes. "Unless they have a magical guitar there for you to break the strings on, I doubt it'll come up." She turned over and propped herself up on her elbows. "What _was_ your session like, anyway? Did you tell them you mean to quit the music business and go into rubbish-picking?" She tossed him a marshmallow.

"I thought they were meant to be private," Donzo said.

"We just heard all about Teddy's, and you were the one who was pushing to get me to talk about mine last year."

Donzo shrugged. "Flitwick asked if I really meant to keep wasting my brain in popular music. I told him that was the plan. So he told me to take any N.E.W.T.s I happen to feel like. He strongly recommended Charms."

"Why Charms?" Teddy asked.

"Lots of Charms in performance," Donzo said, sounding surprised. "You've been backstage. Everything works on Charms. That's why I more or less have to tour with the Sisters until I come of age. Anyway, that was the sum of my careers advice session with my Head of House. Sort of underwhelming, and no one gave me permission to go home every other Saturday." He stood up and pushed the chair away. "Try to distract me. I want to see if I can do it in the midst of a riot."

Teddy and Ruthless cheerfully obliged, hooting and throwing things and telling jokes. Donzo had a little trouble making the initial transformation, but held his form and came back at will without any glitches. Teddy watched him, but couldn't quite sense what he was doing - at least what he was doing that Teddy himself wasn't.

"Are you going to try it?" Teddy asked Ruthless on their way back to Gryffindor. "I mean, now that we know it can be done..."

"I don't know. I might wait until I'm actually an Auror, then sign up for lessons with McGonagall. It'd be useful, and then I wouldn't get sacked over it. But if the pair of you try to come up with some mad Marauder name, I may have to risk Azkaban to kill you both, though I don't really think anyone would hold me accountable."

"And here I was already planning to call you 'Foxy.'"

"I'll start my killing spree with you, Lupin. Everyone knows you provoke me."

They walked on in companionable silence for a while, then Teddy said, "I'm not sure I can do it."

"Don't be absurd."

"Do you _really_ not understand what Donzo's saying, or are you just trying to make me feel better?"

Ruthless laughed. "When McCormack tries teaching, unrelated information actually starts _leaving_ my brain in protest. I think I lost most of second year Charms tonight. You really need to work with him on the idea that it's possible that people who say they don't understand might require a different approach than, 'Well, you've really got to _think_ about it, and, yeah, er... there are icons and... did you ever watch the way raccoons wash their hands?'"

Teddy was still convinced that Donzo's instructions would make perfect sense once he figured out how to do it, but he laughed anyway.

The next day in Care of Magical Creatures, Hagrid decided that Dapple was ready for his first passenger, and everyone seemed glad to give the chance to Roger Young, who told everyone that he was going to be Hagrid's apprentice gamekeeper when he came of age. Hagrid preened as if he were presenting his own grandson to the Wizengamot. (Teddy couldn't imagine anyone who looked less related to Hagrid than Roger - a short, thin boy with hair like lank straw and little wire-rimmed glasses, who rarely spoke loudly enough to be heard across the Hufflepuff Common Room - but there _was_ a sort of resemblance between them when they talked about their pets.)

Teddy watched the flight carefully, noting how Dapple wobbled at first, then made adjustments to accommodate Roger's weight. When no one was looking, he changed his eyes so he could watch the individual muscles move.

"You should do the next one," Donzo prodded.

Teddy shook his head. He wouldn't be able to see it nearly as well if he were actually on Dapple's back.

He spent the next week watching the owls fly in with the post (James was now sending him daily pages of his story, filled with anticipation of a visit home from the hero), and once even caught sight of a hawk, though he couldn't think how to bring it closer to observe. Finally, he took Dad's ring out and relived his memory of sending a hawk up into flight. Dad had been small at the time - only a few months past Greyback's attack on him - but he'd recalled everything in great detail: the heavy push-off from his arm, the pulling up of the legs, the soft, dry smell of the feathers. But Dad's memory was mainly emotional, the happiness he'd felt for the first time since that horrible night, the comfort of his mother standing behind him, and the sheer joy of watching the great bird circle out over the North Sea and come back to _him_ , to Remus John Lupin...

He tried to imagine what the hawk might have remembered - a little boy and a thin woman on a sea cliff, in the shadow of a crumbling stone tower, the boy holding food and a promise of the strange affection humans gave - but he couldn't be sure he wasn't making it up. For all he really knew, the hawk was just thinking that Dad looked like a very big breakfast.

On Saturday morning, he ate breakfast early and went to Professor Longbottom's office, where the Floo was already up and running. After a strict warning not to wander off of the approved list of places to be, he stepped into the flames, and spun out clumsily at the Ministry of Magic.

Maddie caught him before he managed to crash into the opposite wall and said, "I haven't seen you do that for a little while."

"I always do that," Teddy said.

"Not since you started working on it. With Harry's cousin, wasn't it?"

Teddy blinked. Two years ago, Dudley Dursley had tried to teach him to keep from tripping over his shoelaces and straight into Fenrir Greyback, but surely, he hadn't spent the last two years zipping effortlessly out of Floos and not even noticed. He couldn't remember any particular spills, but they were so common that of course he hadn't paid attention to them, and...

"Teddy, you really didn't realize you hadn't been falling?" Maddie gave him a quizzical look.

"I _have_ been. I _always_ trip."

She sighed. "Tonks really wouldn't mind if you outgrew your clumsiness," she said. "I promise. Hers was the bane of her existence."

Teddy felt the blood in his cheeks, but didn't say anything, though - because he was thinking about it - he managed to disprove Maddie's point in the space of their five minute walk down to the Department of Mysteries, stubbing his toe, slipping on wet marble, and dropping his book bag with a loud crash when he caught its strap on a doorknob. Maddie didn't comment.

She opened the door to the empty work room they'd used in August, and lit the torches on the wall with a casual wave of her wand. The Time Turner cabinet continued its endless breaking and repairing, still under a Muffling Charm, and the cobweb-draped boxes remained pushed against the walls. The tarnished flagpole that had been across the top row of seats had, for some reason, been righted and was leaning against the wall, but there was no other change.

"There's been some debate," Maddie said, "about which Daedalus Maze to use. The one you've bonded with is extensively damaged, but another one may not work for you in quite the way you're used to."

"Is it still... spilling things?"

Maddie shrugged. "Here and there. Nothing we can't handle."

"What's it doing?"

"There are some physical manifestations. Croaker's office got the worst of it, since that's where we were working on it."

"Is it back together?"

"It could be functional." Maddie paused and sat down. "I overrode Croaker, since you're my charge. I said that we'd be using a new Maze. Croaker is very disappointed. He'd hoped to see exactly how you managed to shatter it. I told him I preferred a safer environment."

"Oh."

"Don't be too disappointed. I'll show you the damage it did to Croaker's office later, if you miss it." She winked, and twitched her wand. A new Daedalus Maze appeared, and she set it on a low stool. "This is a bit more focused than I'd usually like in an observation, but we have to structure things, since you need to go back to Hogwarts. Do you think you can focus it enough to work on questions of Universe today?"

"Like what?"

"Try to think of something spatial. It doesn't matter what. It mostly likely will just be a starting point, anyway."

Teddy considered it, decided on a whim to begin with a search for Brimmann's downed ship, and settled in to work.

He expected that Maddie would enter with him to observe, but she said that, as long as they were here - "with the full resources of the Department" - she'd prefer to let him do it himself, without any possible interference, and explore his experiences afterward.

"How?" he asked.

She smiled. "You'll love it," she said, then waved him on.

He shook his head, raised his wand, and said, " _Sulci Numine_."

He was standing over an essentially featureless garden Maze, Brimmann waiting for him as a mute Guide. The first difference he noticed was a flatness, a sense of looking at competent but uninspired illustrations. Brimmann, though pocked with the Bloodspots, was just looking back at him placidly.

"So... where did your ship end up?" Teddy muttered, though it wasn't necessary with the Guides.

Brimmann descended toward the Maze and Teddy followed him. It turned briefly into the stone walls of a castle, then the twisting wooden corridors of the ship. Teddy found himself in the crow's nest, looking out toward Portugal. It was what he expected, and he wasn't sure he would have trusted it without the intense, close connection he'd got the night he'd gone into the other Maze angry, and somehow picked up a trace of Brimmann's thoughts.

 _Dull. Not much to evaluate._

He remained in the crow's nest, which he was comfortable with after years of dreaming of Tirza's pirate ship, but he let the scene change around him, become whatever it would. He tried to concentrate on spatial questions - Hermione's notion, maybe, that magic attracted magic, and that was how some places became almost magnetically charged. The first such place he thought of was the spiders' hollow, and the ocean in the Maze dutifully became the Forbidden Forest. The crow's nest became a heavy branch on a gnarled tree, and Teddy climbed down from it and looked for a Guide. In the Forbidden Forest, he supposed he shouldn't have been surprised that it turned out to be Hagrid, smiling vacantly and waiting for a sign that he should go.

Hagrid led him to the clearing first, and Teddy saw the fire that had nearly claimed his own life, fading back to the night that Uncle Harry had died there. Then Hagrid took him back to the arrival of Aragog, and a much younger Hagrid proudly presenting him with a mate. After that, Hagrid became a young and severely pretty McGonagall, who led him down a path that - illogically but understandably - brought him again to the hollow, only a bit before then, in the company of Alphard Black. The pair of them were trying to capture a mooncalf. Alphard led him further along, gradually going back into the Black family, and Teddy saw one spell after another, some minor - students enjoying what had once been a pretty glade - and some astonishingly powerful. Phineas Nigellus, drawn by another power - Teddy, whose attention was starting to flag, thought it might have come from the path that led to Galdreward's clearing - had in that place bound himself to silence about his lost brother after another student had taunted him. An earlier wizard, who Teddy guessed to have been a teacher in the eighteenth century, acted on a political whim and severed powerful magical ties with another entity. Teddy couldn't see who or what it was, but he was willing to bet, given the time, that it had to do with the Americans. It all finally came down to a single, powerful magical act - the act that had, perhaps, started all of it gathering. A witch who had survived Galdreward's plague stumbled out into the clearing, glared up the path toward the standing rocks, then turned her wand on herself, annihilating her own power in a flash of green light.

He'd long-since lost track of his turns, so he used Ariadne's Thread to bring himself back to the workroom.

Maddie looked up from a book she was reading and said, "Back already?"

"How long - ?"

She grinned. "Oh, it's been an hour or two. Shall we head over to Mind to have a look?"

"Is it a Pensieve?" Teddy asked.

"Sort of. The same principle. Same spell, even." She led him out into the corridor and started toward a room Teddy hadn't visited on his last trip to the Department.

"Maddie, can I ask you something?"

"That's why I'm here."

"How can the Maze show me something that no one else saw? Or am I making that sort of thing up?"

"Hmm." She bit her lip. "I'm not sure how to answer that. The devices have a lot of people's memories in them - you'll see some of how we do that in a moment - but obviously, not everything. It's able to extrapolate. What you see may not literally be what happened, but the way the Maze visualizes likely scenarios."

"Oh. I'm sure I know what happened to Brimmann - "

"So it's picking up on your thoughts and showing you what you're certain you'll see. It did that to me, as well. That's where you need to be careful."

"What did you try to see?"

"Never mind that," Maddie said. "I was a very silly girl when I was apprenticing." She opened a door into a room dominated by a large, softly glowing tank. In the tank were -

"Are those _brains_?" Teddy asked.

Maddie nodded. "Some are just Conjured, but a lot of them were donated by Unspeakables upon their deaths. I may have mine put in some day."

Teddy tried not to wrinkle his nose, and failed. "But _why?_ "

"They're a more compact and permanent way to store thoughts than a Pensieve. You have to be careful with them, though. Ron Weasley picked up quite a lot of damage when he Summoned one and it lashed him." She Conjured a small glass tank and filled it with the viscous fluid. "We won't commit this to anything permanent," she said, "but I thought you might like to see how we store a lot of the ideas we work on."

"Is Phineas Nigellus's brain in there?" Teddy asked, unable to make his eyes leave the tank.

"I don't think so," Maddie said. "But Gordon Burke's is."

"Does it... know itself?"

"No one's ever seen any evidence of it." She cleared her throat. "Teddy?"

Teddy forced himself to turn fully away. "All right. What are we doing?"

" _Concresco Cogitatonus_ ," Maddie said. "Like the Pensieve. Just point your wand at your head and concentrate on what just happened in the Maze. We should be able to peel it right off and put it into the solution to have a look."

"Will we be able to go in?"

"No. It's a bit more distant. You'll see."

Teddy did the spell, and released the strand of thought - which was a warm but somber shade of brown - into the solution. It spilled into the liquid like an infusion of ink, but gradually took shape. The memory played out in the tank like a puppet show. Maddie watched it intently, but said nothing more than, "Hmm."

"Was it all right?" Teddy asked after she'd finished.

"It was interesting."

"Professor Longbottom said that Hermione's been wondering about places that collect magic - "

" _There's_ a mind I'd like on some of these questions," Maddie said, then shook her head. "You work with the tool well, Teddy, and that was some nice focused work. I was really expecting that you'd have a hard time focusing after this year, but you did beautifully. I think we may try Faith next time, or Beauty." She Vanished the solution.

"If we were meant to keep that, it would go into one of the brains?" Teddy asked.

"Into the tank. One of the brains would eventually pick it up."

"What if you need something from the tank?"

Maddie laughed. "Would you prefer to try Mind next time? Have a go with the brains?"

"Maybe."

Maddie sat down in a chair by the door. "What _would_ you like to do next? Answer whatever comes to mind first. Except Death. No one does Death until he's been through the other Divisions in a proper Apprenticeship."

"I don't want to do Death, anyway," Teddy said. "Death can pound sand."

"What, then?"

"Faith," Teddy said without thinking, then shrugged. "You said no one was doing Faith. Maybe I'd be interested."

"Faith, it is." Maddie stood up. "If you are interested in it, it would be a boon. I don't think anyone's worked in there for forty or fifty years. And that was only for a little while. When he found out that he couldn't spend all of his time on the more outré business he was interested in, he got discouraged and moved over to Time. That's where he was when they arrested him. Rookwood - Death Eater."

Teddy grimaced, not sure he liked the idea of being the first to pick up a subject after a Death Eater, but then, eventually, someone would have to. He shrugged.

Maddie sighed. "That's all there is, then," she said. "I'll take you on a tour of the Maze damage in Croaker's office, then get you over to Harry's. When I called to check the arrangements, the children were making you a surprise..."


	26. Fort Potter

**Chapter 26:**

 **Fort Potter**

Teddy thought at first that they'd staged the scene in Croaker's office for his benefit - to show a new recruit how fun the Department of Mysteries could be - but Croaker himself didn't appear to be having much fun at all as he tried to get handle on a medieval tavern that had materialized in his office, and Davies was darting around like an oversized wasp, trying to curse a couple of spinning sponges into submission. Maddie joined in happily, going after a loose peacock, and Teddy spent a pleasant fifteen minutes trying to catch a rabbit that kept appearing and disappearing. By the time they finished, everyone but Croaker was laughing, and Croaker looked like he was on the verge.

"Young man," he said to Teddy as he managed to get the last of the manifestations back into the containment box, "you have a knack for chaos."

Teddy laughed even harder at this - the Maze aside, the only person he could think of who was less chaotic than he was, was Victoire on a cleaning spree.

Well, at least the only Gryffindor. He wondered which Houses each of the others had been in, but thought they'd find it childish if he asked.

"Has there been anything else?" Teddy asked as they headed for the Floos.

Maddie thought about it. "Here and there, things we're suspicious of."

"Those manifestations - that was what was going on with the Maze just before Phineas and the others stopped using it."

She turned with unfeigned surprise. "How on Earth did you find that out?"

"Phineas's journals. They're at Hogwarts."

"I'll write a note to Madam Pince. Bring them with you next time."

Teddy nodded, and decided to finish what he hadn't got to before his next trip to London, in case the journals abruptly disappeared.

Maddie bade him farewell at the fireplace, as soon as the flames turned green, as she had a report to finish up and wanted to spend the evening with Daffy, Carny, and Mac (Teddy sent his love). Teddy stepped into the flames and out into the kitchen of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place.

Which was festooned with holly and evergreen wreaths, dancing fairies, and a collection of old robes from upstairs which were pantomiming the Twelve Days of Christmas while a jovial, drunken portrait in Victorian dress sang.

"Teddy!"

He had managed to keep his feet coming out of the Floo, but was off balance when Lily Potter ran straight into his knees, knocking him into a chair at the table. She had a little red-headed dolly clasped in one arm; the other lodged itself firmly around Teddy's neck. She kissed his cheek resoundingly.

"Well... hello, Lily. Er... Happy Christmas?"

She pulled away and clapped (the dolly took the brunt of it) and said, "We couldn't have you at Christmas so Meg and I" - she held up the dolly - "said we ought to have Christmas again! Al and James are getting more holly, and that's Sargus Black" - she pointed at the portrait - "who Mum found up in the corner of the attic. They'd put his face on the floor! But he's very funny, so we brought him down. Sargus, this is Teddy Lupin!"

The portrait finished a rousing chorus of "a partridge in a pear tree," then bowed, sweeping his tall hat dramatically. Somewhere, buried under a good deal of flesh, were the typical features of the Black family. He tipped his painted bottle and said, "So it is, so it is. To fair returns!" He drank.

Teddy tried to remember where on the family tree this one belonged, but drew a blank. He'd have to look at it later, or ask Maurice tomorrow. "Nice to meet you," he said.

"Nice to be met!" He drank again.

Lily kissed her free fist and tossed the kiss to the portrait, who caught it jovially and put it on his cheek.

The door at the top of the stairs opened, and Aunt Ginny came down, arms outstretched. She hugged Teddy, then looked at Lily, frustrated. "Lily, when guests arrive, we tell Mummy about it!"

"Teddy's here," Lily announced.

Aunt Ginny rolled her eyes and turned back to Teddy. "You're a bit earlier than we thought. Go on up to the parlor, and take my social secretary here with you. The boys are putting up a tree."

"I didn't bring anything. I didn't know we were doing this!"

"Well, it wouldn't be a surprise if you knew, now would it?" She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. "I mean it, though, I have a lot of cooking to do, so if you want to be helpful, take Lily upstairs."

"All right." Teddy bent down and let Lily climb up onto his back. She grabbed him around the neck - Meg the dolly's head was jammed against his nose - and he carried her up the stairs. She'd got very heavy by the time he made it to the parlor, and he was happy to let her slide down and run inside.

Uncle Harry and the boys were, indeed, decorating a Christmas tree, though the room looked like one of George's Christmas Wheezes had exploded badly, sending tinsel and garland and pine needles in every direction.

James spotted him first and jumped down from a stepladder he was using. He ran across to Teddy with huge strides, and Teddy thought "He's taller!" before being pummeled again, first by James, then by Al. They were talking over each other.

" - got you presents, but I didn't send them - "

" - he kept forgetting because of his stupid story - "

" - so we thought - "

Teddy hugged them both.

Uncle Harry came out from behind the tree. "'Lo, Teddy," he said. He looked reserved, and Teddy realized that he wasn't sure what was going to happen. The children obviously didn't know anything about a fight.

Teddy took a deep breath, told himself to grow up, and went across the room to him.

A moment later, he was caught in an embrace.

Uncle Harry pulled away, a wry smile on his face. "I thought you might be too... too old for that."

Teddy shrugged.

Uncle Harry shook his head. "I'll take that as fifteen for 'Of course not, Uncle Harry, I shall never be too old for a hug from my godfather.'"

"Something like that," Teddy said. "I was afraid you might think I was too... tall... to hug."

"You could dwarf Hagrid, and you'd still be my godson."

James, who would have loved the idea of speaking in code if he'd known they were doing so, had apparently had quite enough of it as it was. He grabbed Teddy's arm to get his attention and said, "Do you want to come outside? Al and I made a fort in the courtyard."

"All right," Teddy said. "I'd like to see that."

"We _were_ going to say no girls were allowed, but Mum said we couldn't." He looked balefully at Lily, who stuck her tongue out and had Meg make a rude-looking gesture with one padded hand.

Uncle Harry cleared his throat. "Does Meg need to go up for another nap for a day or two?"

Lily paled and shook her head.

"Then Meg needs to watch her manners."

Lily nodded frantically.

Uncle Harry gave Teddy a sheepish look, then said, quietly enough that the children didn't hear (they were now engaged with an argument about who got to take Teddy outside), "I feel like Aunt Petunia when I do that. I just don't want her insulting someone with the thing."

Teddy wasn't sure how to feel about this - Uncle Harry confiding something about parenting to him was quite new, and made him wonder how many of his own scoldings as a child had been followed by such comments to other people. But it seemed well-meant enough. "I'll watch her outside," he said.

"Good," Uncle Harry said. "James is generally happy to intervene, but he's not very persuasive, as the last time he got hold of Meg himself..." He shook his head helplessly. "It takes a specialized skill set to untrain a talking doll."

" _I_ get Teddy," Al announced, rising above the fray, "because the pair of you are both yelling. Aunt Hermione says that the first person who has to yell loses." He turned and marched importantly over to Teddy. "Let's go outside," he said. "I'm making a secret passage."

"It's not a _secret_ ," Lily said, "since you tell everyone."

"Have fun," Uncle Harry said, and winked.

Teddy let himself be pulled out of the parlor and down the stairs. As the children manhandled him toward the courtyard, he thought he caught a glimpse of Phineas Nigellus in a cheap painting of Stonehenge, but there was no time to explore this.

The air outside was cool and damp, and the courtyard looked like it had endured a week of drizzling rain. Between the Black family gravestones, there was a cone-shaped structure made of sticks, bound at the top with a red and gold Gryffindor scarf, which looked soggy and dispirited. A colorful cloth had been draped around it. Teddy guessed that Aunt Ginny or Uncle Harry had made it waterproof.

James ran ahead and lifted the flap that covered the entrance. "Welcome to Fort Potter," he said.

Teddy had to bend over to enter. He'd been in enough wizarding tents in his life that he wasn't entirely surprised to find a long, wooden room inside. There was a door at each end, and a fire pit in the center, in which a bowl of bluebell flames danced merrily under a glass cover.

"I see you had help," he said.

Al nodded. "Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione came over, and we played in here with the cousins. Aunt Hermione made the fire. Uncle Ron made the room. Rosie says that this is a _longhouse_ , which is much better than the other sort. I'm Keeper of the Fire, since I'm in the middle."

"All right," Teddy said.

"I'm Keeper of the Western Door," James said importantly. "And Lily is Keeper of the Eastern Door."

Teddy considered pointing out that the room ran north-to-south, but decided it would just be mean-spirited. "What about Rosie and Hugo?" he asked.

"They don't live here, so they're the little brothers," Lily said, then giggled. "Even Rosie."

James shrugged. "She's the one who said that's what they were. It was in a book. She says it's proper."

"Well, if Rosie says so," Teddy said, and started to look around. James had brought a wooden crate down from somewhere (it had a cargo date of 1883 and was addressed to Ursula Black) and piled it up with his bits of parchment. There was a cradle near one of the doors, which Lily sat beside to rock Meg furiously. This area also had several toy wands, a cardboard sword and shield, and a portrait (drawn in Metamorphmarkers that kept changing color) of a curly-haired woman in a long, triangular green robe.

"It's Grannydromeda," she said when she saw Teddy looking. "I made it. I wish it talked."

"They don't talk unless someone's dead," Teddy said without thinking.

Lily looked horrified, and patted her drawing reassuringly. "I don't wish it talked, then."

"I have Dad's school trunk," Al announced, and went over to a battered-looking wooden trunk to sit down.

"Who wants a stupid trunk?" James muttered unconvincingly. "The Minister gave me a paperweight from his own desk."

Teddy chose to let this sibling rivalry go. "So, you've been cleaning the attic?" he asked.

James laughed. "Mum got tired of listening to all of the old portraits up there arguing with each other all night. So we're digging out."

"What are you doing with them all?" Teddy asked. It was a question that had never occurred to him before. The portraits didn't have _souls_ , but they had memories and personalities. Surely, they weren't just Vanished with the rubbish when they got damaged.

"Mum gave them to the Ministry," James said. "I don't know what _they_ do."

Teddy thought of the tank of brains, and thought he had a pretty good idea of it.

James sat down at his crate. "We found this there, too. Granny Molly made it into a desk for me. See?" He displayed a knee-hole.

"Was anything in it?"

"Old papers. We left them, so it would weigh more and be sturdy." James got out from behind it and sat down on the floor. "What was it like in the Quarantine?" he asked.

Lily and Al were agreeable to this line of questioning, so Teddy found himself telling the story of Hogwarts under quarantine for the next half hour, skipping only awkward information about Victoire (though he compensated by giving her a heroic role in the Maze adventure, which suited James perfectly, as he adored Victoire). Lily looked suspicious at a few of the embellishments, but the boys knew it was in fun.

They showed him around a little bit more - Al was, indeed, building a "secret passage," which turned out to be a string which was buried in the grass, which they were meant to tiptoe along and be invisible on - then went inside.

Granny had arrived while they were in the fort, and Aunt Ginny had finished up with supper. The house smelled like Christmas Day. Presents were exchanged in the parlor, or at least piled on Teddy himself, since he'd brought none to give in return. There was a jumper from Molly Weasley, of course, and a new set of Muggles and Minions dice from James and Al. Lily said that she (and Meg) had made him gingerbread, but had to eat it, as it would have gone stale waiting for the quarantine to lift, so her present today had been to wait for him and give him a kiss. Teddy thought this a more than adequate substitute. Ron and Hermione sent a new chess set, and Rosie had knitted him a lopsided hat, with a note that, "Mummy taught me to make these; I hope it fits! It's from Hugo, too, though he didn't help." Granny had got him a lot of new clothes, which she'd measured him for without telling him when she'd come up to Hogwarts, and Aunt Ginny got him a new traveling bag for Donzo's tour this summer. Uncle Harry held up a small package, but didn't give it to him.

Teddy thought about it all through supper, and was glad when Uncle Harry suggested, before pudding, that they go have a talk.

"I did get you a normal present," Uncle Harry said, leading him into the office and Levitating a brightly colored box over. "It's decent work robes for your visits to the Ministry. Nothing fancy. But..." He pulled out the smaller package. "We've been cleaning the house a bit - "

"James said so."

Uncle Harry smiled. "Yes, well. I expect that by the time _their_ children finish up at Hogwarts, we may have the whole house livable." He looked at the package. Anyway, I... well, I found a little Muggle camera, the sort the used to make out of cardboard, that you throw away after you use it."

Teddy had never heard of such a thing, but guessed that wasn't the point.

"I got them developed magically - I had no idea what was in them, so I couldn't very well take it to a Muggle shop. It was far too old to animate them, but I thought you'd like them. It looks like Sirius took most of them." He handed Teddy the package.

Teddy opened it. The pictures were glossy and still - Muggle style - but they were quite alive, for all of that. There were Mum and Dad in the parlor, reading a Fifi LaFolle to one another, and then in the kitchen, on a Wolfsbane-brewing day. Mum in a sort of bohemian Muggle outfit, Dad in a suit and tie, marking papers while a dog Patronus watched. One of them must have taken the camera at some point, since there was a picture of Sirius with Buckbeak (he was shockingly gaunt). They were just scenes of life at Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, during the year that Mum, Dad, and Sirius had made it their home, though there were a few that seemed to have been taken at a stodgy-looking flat. Teddy looked closely at one of these, and recognized the desk that Mum had eventually turned into his own cot.

Teddy wanted to reach into the pictures, shake the people there, and tell them that if they weren't careful, they'd all be dead within three years, but of course, they wouldn't have heard.

"I..." Uncle Harry sighed. "I know it must seem like I don't want you to be close to them. But I do, Teddy. I wouldn't ever want you not to be. Just not..."

"...with the Stone," Teddy finished. He tried to summon anger, but couldn't.

"I worry," Uncle Harry said.

"I know." Teddy looked at the current top picture, which happened to be of Mum trying to dance with Sirius. "Why don't you want me at the Department of Mysteries? Is it because of Sirius dying there?"

"Yes. And because of the trials they had there, and the things that they used it for. And because they study things that I worry about with you."

"Because you don't think I can handle them?"

"I don't know. I don't really understand it. But even if I don't - I'll help if anything goes wrong. I just want you to know that. You don't have to do things alone. Even if you think I don't approve." He let out a relieved breath. "Phew. That's all I wanted to say, really. I really hate being this uncomfortable."

Teddy nodded. "Me, too. And I called, didn't I? When I figured out about the clearing."

Uncle Harry laughed. "Yes, you did. I was never happier to hear from anyone. Though your timing could use work."

"Right." Teddy looked at the pictures again. "Uncle Harry?"

"What?"

"Is anything strange happening at the Ministry? I mean, outside of Croaker's office."

"Nothing I've noticed."

"Could you keep your eye out for things that shouldn't be there? Or people?"

"Like who?"

"I don't know. It could be anyone. Or anything. Old things slip out sometimes. Just... if you see something really strange, could you send your Patronus? And tell Maddie. I don't know if the Department's really paying attention."

Uncle Harry considered this, then nodded. "I'll call you for help if I think we need it," he said.

By Wednesday, Teddy was regretting his decision to move to Faith. He couldn't think of any good questions, except for trite, common things. Every time he pictured himself bringing up something like, "If God exists, why is there evil?", he winced. And he guessed that they wouldn't think much of something as selfish as "If God is just, then why did Fenrir Greyback outlive my father?"

He scribbled them down anyway, hoping they would lead to something incredibly wise to ask, but by supper on Wednesday night, he was hopeless on the subject.

"Why don't you ask Brother Francis?" Frankie asked, scanning the text of a manuscript his father had sent to him for editing. "He's always offering 'help of a spiritual nature.'"

"He's a ghost," Teddy said. "I don't think they think very deeply."

Frankie shrugged. "What about that werewolf priest? I'll bet he's got a lot."

Teddy didn't really want to nick Père Alderman's questions, but he couldn't think of anyone else, so after he finished pudding, he went back to his dormitory and wrote a letter, explaining that he just needed help thinking of Faith questions to ask, things that wouldn't be so selfish or silly.

On Friday morning, a tattered-looking owl came from France. It held up its foot for Teddy to take its message. Teddy gave it the rest of his breakfast.

 _Dear Teddy,_ Père Alderman had written, _I'm not entirely certain how to advise you. Of course your questions are personal - it's a deeply personal matter. Don't imagine that when I presented myself to the parish priest in Nyons that I was consumed with abstract questions about the nature of the universe, or how many angels could dance on the head of the famous pin. Quite to the contrary, I asked what you did - how could Lupin be gone while Greyback was still alive? How could a good man lose his chance at happiness, and what did it mean for all of us? I went there in the pit of a great despair, because I had lost all faith that the world could be kind. If the world could give him a tiny, fleeting taste of happiness, only to snatch it away forever, why should any of us have hope in anything? As the Psalmist wrote, "Out of the depths, I cry to Thee," right? Only I was mostly screaming at, rather than crying to._

 _I expected the priest - Père Marcel - to talk about eternal rewards, and I was quite prepared to go on a rampage about how eternal rewards oughtn't replace the chance at being happy here on earth, but he just let me talk. And then he said, "No, Robert, you're right. There is nothing just in what you describe. God Himself would weep at such a thing." A bit after that, I confessed everything to him, including my lycanthropy, and we asked questions of a much more personal sort than you're proposing._

 _I've never come to a satisfactory conclusion, so I don't expect that you've got a trite answer ready to be patted into place as soon as you're ready to put it there. After all, you never did anything at all, and were also horribly cheated. It's a perfectly decent faith question. My only caution is that it's a painful one, and you might not want to go deeply into it in front of the near-strangers who are evaluating you._

 _Oddly, I suspect this is a conversation you might have had with your father and mother. During the last year of the war, I'd started to study Catholicism, largely to honor a man called Father Montgomery, and I had a long and fruitful conversation with them. Your mother was a woman of faith and good hope - a solid Protestant, but she didn't hold my own explorations against me. Your dad was baptized Catholic, but after his bite, his family asked a lot of angry questions of their own, and the questions led them in quite a different direction. He spent a good part of his adulthood rather sour on God. I expect that the three of you might have had some very interesting conversations. If you still dream as you once told me that you did, you might find it profitable to ask them... though their situation may well change the equation entirely._

 _It's not the easy questions about Faith that are interesting (and I do suggest that your instinct about what you call "silly" questions is more on the mark than your worry about "selfish" ones, though I'd merely call them "often-asked"), but the questions that are hard, and they will always come from deep inside you. Don't marginalize them._

 _On the other hand, as I mentioned, these_ are _personal matters, so you may wish to ask more academic questions, like how faith functions in the context of community. I recall reading a thinker (don't ask who, I can't find my notes!) once who said that only faith can truly create a civilization - whether it's faith in God or faith in some secular ideal, or some combination thereof - because creating a civilization requires profoundly unnatural behaviors, like restraining your instinct to kill your neighbor and claim his pretty mate, which ultimately happen because we have some sort of system that we take on faith. I don't know if that's true or not, but it's nice and impersonal._

 _Does that help at all?_

 _I will admit that I'd enjoy talking to you about it this summer, if you have a chance. You'd be surprised how infrequently I get to talk about these things!_

 _In faith,  
Fr. Bob Alderman_

Over his printed name, he'd scrawled, in his large, mostly illegible, and vaguely violent hand, "Alderman."

Gratefully, Teddy scribbled the question about community down on his notes, and circled it. He thought uncomfortably of Jeremiah Galdreward and his brother, coming to fratricide, but surely, the new Maze would take him somewhere different.

He didn't think he could force one of his dreams. He'd tried once or twice with only marginal results. Besides, the idea of forcing one of them just to argue with his parents about religion didn't seem appealing. Instead, he just wrote a thank you to Alderman, and went to the library after supper to get background on faith and community-building. Geoffrey Philips, who happened to be picking up a book from Madam Pince at the same time, looked horrified.

When he got back to his room, there was another owl, this one from James, who wanted to tell more stories of Fort Potter. He'd decided that the paperweight Kingsley had given him was really an especially magic portal, which would take them anywhere in time, as long as they were all sitting on Uncle Harry's school trunk. Al and Lily were apparently happy to play along, though Meg did not approve. Teddy wrote back, suggesting that they find proper costumes, so they wouldn't stand out. He mentioned that "Grannydromeda" would be able to help, figuring she'd know to let them into Mum's wardrobes if they asked.

He went to sleep.

He found himself again in Dad's memory, the Day of the Hawk, but it wasn't entirely the memory in the ring. For one thing, Teddy was there himself, not looking out through Dad's eyes. For another, Grandmother Julia was nowhere to be seen. Finally, Dad, a very small boy in the dream, was wearing a bright white shirt and a McManus tartan kilt. One arm was covered in a leather gauntlet for the hawk to land on, but it was far away now, just a speck.

Dad was sitting on the low stone wall, Teddy standing behind him, in Grandmother Julia's usual spot. Dad's head was tilted back, his eyes fixed on the faraway hawk. He raised the gauntleted arm hopefully, then lowered it again with a sigh.

"He'll come back," Teddy said. "You feed him."

"I know." Dad turned, and Teddy realized that, despite appearances, he was not a small boy at all. "But I sometimes wonder if it would be better if I just let him fly away and hunt on his own."

Teddy shook his head. "You don't make him come back. He wants to."

Dad gave him a small smile and said, "I've heard that before."

"Well, you should listen to your elders," Teddy said, and grinned. The hawk was starting to circle down. "Budge over." Dad slid over, and Teddy sat down beside him on the wall, looking up at the bird himself. He could also see from the hawk's eyes, the two boys sitting far below. It didn't seem strange to see both.

He and Dad didn't talk much more, just passing mentions of the weather and the passing birds, but they sat together there on the cool Scottish cliff, listening to the waves as Dad's hawk circled slowly down to them.

Teddy woke up on Saturday morning feeling rested and safe.


	27. Broken Wings

**Chapter 27:**

 **Broken Wings**

"I'm never going to get this," Tinny Gudgeon said, staring helplessly at a test Flitwick had given in December. She wasn't required to actually _take_ the test, but Flitwick wanted an essay that showed her understanding of the topics in it.

Teddy was currently helping Neil, who'd started to come to the plague victim review sessions to catch up on what he'd missed during the couple of days he'd been out for his transformation. He wasn't very far behind, so he only gave a short look of panic when Teddy signaled that he had to leave.

"You're doing fine," Teddy said.

Neil grimaced and applied himself to a Potions recipe he was supposed to memorize.

Teddy went over to Tinny and sat down beside her. "You're doing fine, too, Tinny."

She shook her head. Her fists were balled and planted on either side of her forehead. "I'm _not_. I'm going to fail my O.W.L. in Charms. And it used to be my best subject!"

"Where are you stuck?"

"The Floo security Charm. I don't know what Flitwick means about 'inclusionary' or 'exclusionary.'"

Teddy thought it was easy enough to figure out - words meant what they meant - but he guessed that Tinny had worked herself into a terror, and it was making her brain a bit fuzzy. "The question is whether the security charm lets people in or keeps people out."

"What? It keeps people out!"

Teddy frowned. "I think... well, think about a lock and a key. The lock is exclusionary. It keeps people out. The key is inclusionary - it lets people in. Is the Charm more of a lock - to keep the world out - or a key, to let the people who live there in?"

"Doesn't it do both?"

"That's what Flitwick wants you to answer. And don't worry - there's actually a debate about it. He was going on about it. There was article in _Charms Quarterly_."

"Did you read it?"

"No. Neither did anyone else. He's just trying to get you to think about how Charms work."

She looked miserably unsure.

Teddy patted her shoulder. "Don't worry, you'll get it. At least enough for the O.W.L. And if you want to know more, just ask Donzo's dad this summer. He knows everything about Floos, and he loves answering questions." He smiled in what he hoped was a reassuring way, but his mind had coughed up images of his trip into the Floo with Kirley Duke, and was now following a straight path to the horrible night in the Shrieking Shack, when he'd used the knowledge he'd picked up to kill Fenrir Greyback.

"Are you all right?" Tinny asked.

"Yes."

"Are you sure?"

He nodded. "Go on," he said. "Just do your favorite Charms for a little while, until you feel like thinking about them again."

She nodded and set to work on a few simple and amusing Charms that she enjoyed, and Teddy looked around. No one else in the group seemed to desperately need help, so he sat down in his place and was about to start his Transfiguration homework when he felt a light tap on his shoulder. Expecting one of the students, he manufactured a helpful expression and turned around.

Dean Thomas was standing behind him, looking a bit spooked. "Well," he said, "that was... interesting."

Teddy stood up and straightened his papers. "Were you looking for me?"

"Yes. Neville said you'd be here. Could we talk? About McGonagall," he added before Teddy could assume anything else.

"Is something wrong with her?"

"What? No! I'm just nearly finished with her portrait… just doing the final touches now, that she doesn't need to be there for." He looked toward the door. "Could you come out into the corridor? Pince will have my head if I keep you talking in the library."

Teddy gathered his things and followed Dean out, waving to Frankie to let him know to help anyone who needed it.

Dean looked around the corridor and found a bench under a window. There was a dreary early April rain falling outside. He sat down; Teddy sat beside him and waited for him to speak.

"The portrait has as many of Professor McGonagall's memories as she's chosen to give it," Dean said after a while. "I asked her if she could name some other people whose memories of her she'd most like it to have as well."

"For a little depth," Teddy said. "Phineas Nigellus told me that he had a lot of his son's memories."

"Yes. I sometimes wish other people's memories were enough to make the portrait completely work."

"I wish you could, too. I'd let you try this" - he held up Dad's ring - "but I'm afraid that if I use another spell on it - "

" - it could break. I wouldn't let you risk it. And your memories of what it tells you wouldn't be any different than adding memories from a third party." Dean shook his head. "At any rate, you were one of the people Professor McGonagall wanted me to talk to."

"Me?"

"She likes you quite a lot, Teddy, and she's a woman whose good opinion means something."

Teddy was dumbfounded by this bit of information. He had invited McGonagall for a tea, and they'd gone into the Pensieve together to research Greyback. He had talked to her now and then, and he certainly agreed that her good opinion meant something... but was that enough for her to name him as one of the few whose memories of her she wanted preserved in her portrait. The one thing he knew about her that others didn't - that she had once loved a boy named Alphard Black, who had called her "Pallas" and returned her love - was something she'd asked him _not_ to share.

He frowned. "Wait... you said my memories of what was on the ring wouldn't be enough to make a portrait of Dad, but would they be enough to put memories into Professor McGonagall's?"

"Yes. That's what I meant by third party. But I'm sure she wants _your_ memories."

"No," Teddy said. "I mean, I'll give a few, but I know what ought to be there."

"Do you know the spell?"

" _Concresco Cogitatonus_ , right?"

Dean nodded. "Yes." He dug in his portfolio and came out with a small glass jar. "It's Unbreakable," he said. "Just put what you'd like to in it."

"Will you be able to see it?"

"No. I just mix it with the paint. These will go into some shading and highlighting."

Teddy took the jar and concentrated on his own memories of McGonagall first - the way she'd come to help him, her concern for the students this year, the way she'd taken special time to show him his grandmother Julia. Then, once those had curled down into the jar, he searched his memory for anything Dad had shared about learning from her, about her acceptance of him as a colleague when he'd come to Hogwarts. There were memories of detentions with the Marauders, and one - Teddy's favorite - where the boys had been talking about who their ideal girls were and Sirius had announced that he thought Professor McGonagall the best woman he knew, and that he'd be certain to marry her, if she were just a bit younger (he had been thirteen at the time). These memories were much paler than Teddy's own - a sandy shade of tan - but Teddy thought they would be more valuable in the end. _And_ he had a feeling that they were what she truly wanted.

He sealed the jar when he was finished, and gave it to Dean. "Could you tell her, thanks for asking?"

Dean nodded. "I'm sure she'll be grateful for your addition."

"It'll be a great portrait," Teddy said. "The mural's really good, too." In fact, now that it was finished, Teddy suspected that Dean had put more than a few third party memories into it - it wasn't aware of the world in the corridor (except for the boggart), but all the figures seemed to have at least some discernible personality.

"I wish it really had his personality," Dean said. "If you ever just want me to paint him for you - "

"We have your portrait in the parlor," Teddy said. "I like it a lot."

Dean sighed, and stood up. "I have to get back and finish up. I have another sitting starting tomorrow."

"Who?"

"Narcissa Malfoy. Can you believe it?"

Teddy couldn't. He shook Dean's hand and let him go.

The study group broke up a few minutes later, and Teddy wandered toward the Great Hall, not sure what he meant to do or where he meant to go. The idea of just sitting at the Gryffindor table until curfew, maybe chatting with Victoire or Ruthless, or moving over to Slytherin to play cards with Corky and Maurice (and probably Donzo), occurred to him with a sort of vague, nostalgic interest, and it sounded as good as anything else. Thus he was in the entrance hall when the great door crashed open, and Hagrid thundered in, looking wild.

Teddy went to him. "What is it, Hagrid?"

"Got to find Madam Pomfrey," he said.

"Madam Pomfrey? Is the plague back? What's happening?"

Hagrid shook his head. "It's an accident."

"One of your students?"

"No! It's Dapple... 'e's hurt bad."

Teddy sent his Patronus to Madam Pomfrey, and followed Hagrid back out without waiting for her.

They ran to the paddock, where Dapple lay on the muddy ground, making short, high-pitched screeches. Roger was kneeling beside his head, stroking the feathers of his neck. Buckbeak, his wings spread, stood protectively over them.

Hagrid bowed while running, and Buckbeak let him in. Teddy stopped to make his own bow, but had to take a guess that Buckbeak would let him in, as it wasn't returned with so much as a nod.

"What happened?" he asked as soon as he was safely at Dapple's side. This close, he could see that Dapple's left wing was broken badly, a bone poking out between the feathers, blood pouring from the wound.

Roger continued to pat Dapple's neck. "We were going for a flight," he said. "I've been trying to take him up every day for exercise. We went near the Whomping Willow - "

"The Willow hit him?"

"It's been so quiet lately, I didn't even think of it, but today, all the sudden... well, I noticed that the ditch was gone, then the tree hit us out of nowhere."

"The ditch..." Teddy hissed through his teeth. "The damned Maze is manifesting again." He put his hand on one of Dapple's talons and patted him gently. "I'm sorry, Dapple. Madam Pomfrey will get you fixed up, though."

Madam Pomfrey indeed arrived a moment later, shooing away Roger and Teddy and asking Hagrid to keep Buckbeak off of her. Teddy and Roger dropped back, and Teddy glanced up at the Whomping Willow, which was sluggish and slow again.

"I want to have a look at the ditch," he said. "You said it was actually gone?"

"It was like it used to be," Roger said. "Before... you know."

"Before I caved it in."

"Yeah."

Teddy looked again at Buckbeak, Hagrid, and Madam Pomfrey, all watching carefully over Dapple, and decided that he wasn't needed. He struck off toward the ditch, Roger beside him. When they reached it, it was there again - full of early wildflowers on the sides, the bottom a long and dirty puddle. Teddy began to walk along the edge, toward the school wall.

"What are we looking for?" Roger asked.

"I just want to see if anything's different. If it changes again. What if it had done that while someone was walking along?"

Roger didn't say anything.

"I'd steer clear of the Willow, anyway," Teddy said. "Dapple doesn't know to stay away on his own."

They continued to walk on. The days were getting longer now, and the evening had a fragile golden light in it. Teddy hadn't walked the whole length of the ditch since it had formed. It had a strange beauty as it wound its way through the grounds. Honking daffodils had taken root, and were singing to the evening sun. Forget-me-nots and daisies commingled in the long grass. A family of frogs hopped along in the puddle, from which algae was sending up a pungent green sort of smell. At some points, the teachers had put up little footbridges, and they were getting pleasantly mossy in the spring dampness.

Teddy tried to remember what it had once looked like - the unbroken rolling hill, with the tunnel a secret beneath it, a shadowy exit where the Marauders had once crept out, followed by Severus Snape, where Uncle Harry had followed Sirius, and later gone to see Snape die while Mum and Dad were dying back at the grounds. He could have been in this very tunnel, on his way to their house, while they were being cut down.

The wildflowers bobbed their heads drowsily, not caring about Teddy's morbid turn of thought. Roger, silent beside him, didn't even seem to notice. Even Teddy couldn't really work up any anger, just a momentarily overwhelming sense of loss, as they reached the school wall. Iron bars had been extended down from the base of the stones. The puddle had a bit of an incline here, and was cascading down into a spreading pool on the far side.

He sat down against the wall and looked back up at the Whomping Willow, now just a black smear on the twilight.

Roger sat beside him. "What if it did come back? What if someone's head got caught when the ceiling formed? Can you fix this, Lupin?"

"I don't know. Don't stick your head in until I figure it out."

The ditch remained a ditch for as long as they sat there in the lengthening shadow of the wall, and for the length of their walk back. By the time they reached Hagrid's, Madam Pomfrey had healed Dapple's break, but Dapple was curled on the ground, looking dejected. Buckbeak was prodding him to get up and fly, but he wasn't taking the bait.

Roger shook his head. "I should stay and see what I can do."

Teddy let him walk away, then turned and went back to the castle. He wrote to Maddie first, to tell her that there was definite evidence of the Maze's continued operation here, and ask again if there was anything at the Ministry. Uncle Harry hadn't mentioned anything, but it just might not have happened where he'd see. When he finished that, he brought out Phineas's diaries again, and read through the time when the Maze-world had started to seep into their real world. His notes hadn't been meticulous, but he did mention accidents like Dapple's. Frustrated, Teddy flipped ahead, looking for their answer, but all he could find was a repetition of Percival Dumbledore's advice: _The only way out is in._

He went to sleep thinking of this, but no dreams came.

He spent the remainder of the week getting ready for his next visit to London. The robes Uncle Harry had got him fit perfectly well, but he felt he needed practice wearing them, as he felt like a great phony when he put them on, a small boy playing at being a Ministry official. Ruthless caught him at this endeavor on Thursday night, and howled in amusement. He also spent time going through catalogs, looking for Christmas presents for the family, since he hadn't brought them last time. George Weasley, declaring that he and Granny had decided Teddy was old enough to handle some of his own money, had sent him a bank notice for what seemed an obscene amount of money - two hundred and fifty Galleons - that had come to him through various sales of products either he or Dad had worked on. He had plenty left over when he finished shopping. He wasn't sure what to spend the rest on, or if he should save it, or how much might have accrued into his account without his knowledge over the years.

Saturday morning came in a rush of activity, getting to Professor Longbottom's office and out to the Ministry, but once he got there, it was routine. Maddie adored Père Alderman's question, and even liked that Teddy had asked someone else for a question. "Quite a lot of them come from elsewhere, you know," she said.

The Maze dutifully took him on a gentleman's tour of various faith communities, and he watched how they seemed to draw together around something magnetic and powerful. It left him with more questions than answers, but he guessed he'd have to move on to something different next time. He chose Mind, thinking that he'd like a turn with the brains.

"Are you sure about that, mate?" Ron Weasley asked at Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, when Teddy mentioned it. "I got burned by one of those things."

"I think he'll know better than to Summon it, dear," Hermione said.

Teddy had expected to be the presenter of gifts this time, but he'd forgotten that this was as close as they'd come to his sixteenth birthday, and the whole family had descended. Granny had baked a cake, and various Weasleys teased him about being a grand excuse for a family party. He returned to Fort Potter, where James welcomed him as a visiting dignitary, and his brother, sister, and several cousins performed a "ceremonial dance," which appeared to have come from Victoire's sisters, since it resembled a Veela dance, though it included whichever of the younger boys could be coerced into participating. Rosie had brought a book on Native Americans, and kept making corrections to the longhouse. Aimee had also started a fort at Shell Cottage, which she claimed was vastly superior to James's, and they were currently negotiating a complicated peace treaty before hostilities could begin. James called on the Hallowed Paperweight to give them an answer. Someone had evidently Charmed it, because it glowed prettily before James declared that the paperweight deemed Fort Potter superior. Teddy wondered if Aimee would produce a prophetic quill to argue with it, but she didn't.

He went back to Hogwarts that evening and helped Roger and Maurice with Dapple, who was still stubbornly refusing to fly. Buckbeak went up and did simple circles to demonstrate, and then nudged Dapple again, but it was no great help. Roger managed at least to get Dapple to canter around the paddock a few times, but his overflowing enthusiasm seemed to have disappeared. They left him with Buckbeak, who put a large wing over him to keep off the rain that had started to fall.

Three days later, Teddy's actual birthday passed with little fanfare, as all of his presents had come in his visit to London. Victoire and Marie, still quite keen on the hand-made presents from Christmas, made him a tie and a tie-clip. Donzo gave him a box of hawk-feather quills. Ruthless found him a book on the history of the Animagus charm. She also instigated a bit of "nonsense" by the fireplace, but they mutually decided that it was a bad idea this time. This didn't stop Teddy from thinking about it for the next week and wishing that better sense hadn't prevailed.

April pressed inexorably on, the days getting warmer and longer, the greens getting lusher. Teddy returned to London for his third evaluation, on Mind, and Maddie admitted that they hadn't entirely got the Maze under control yet, and it occasionally seemed to "pulse." It was not, she promised, Teddy's concern. He told her about Percival Dumbledore's admonition, but she thought it was too dangerous to go into that particular Maze, no matter what they'd said. It was clearly pushed into more frantic activity by magical prodding.

Teddy supposed she was right. Its surprises had worn down after he'd left it alone for a while at Hogwarts; perhaps it would just wind down on its own if left alone at the Ministry, like a clock that no one bothered winding.

Or at least, that was what he told himself in the day. At night, it wasn't as easy to dismiss, and the twisting paths of the Daedalus Maze were once again haunting his dreams.

Neither Time nor Mind turned out to be especially interesting evaluations, at least as far as Teddy was concerned. The Maze was less reliable than a Pensieve on Time - it liked to speculate too much - and Mind, in which he was tested with the brains rather than Maze, was cold and dull, at least once he managed to get the spell right to wrap himself in the stored thoughts. The first few tries had been like trying to embrace a poison jellyfish, which had been quite exciting, but it wasn't the sort of excitement he was looking for. Once he got the process right, it was like Daniel had found a way to distill Binns' classes, put them in one of his needles, and inject them directly into Teddy's blood. Maddie seemed surprised that he didn't especially care for it, but didn't push.

His fifth evaluation would be in Beauty, on the second Saturday in May... a few days after Victory Day, and not a time Teddy felt particularly in tune with Beauty, but the Identity room was being used, so that needed to be put off. He prepared for it half-heartedly, wandering along the old ditch again, trying to appreciate the flowers instead of thinking about the battle anniversary that was approaching. Not finding any inspiration at all, he followed it back to the Whomping Willow, then went down to Hagrid's, where Donzo and Maurice were taking a turn at trying to cheer Dapple up. Teddy perched himself on the fence to watch.

"Why don't you try playing for him?" Maurice suggested.

"I don't know," Donzo said. "Do you suppose he has my concert fee?"

Maurice pretended to consider this, then said, "We'll call it your yearly charity."

Donzo rolled his eyes and Summoned his guitar, which was lying chummily beside his book bag on the far side of the fence. He overturned the umbrella stand and sat on the bottom to pick out a few chords. "What are you in the mood for today, Dapple? Classical enchantment music? Some Muggle rock and roll? Folk? I don't happen to know any hippogriff songs, but I know one about an eagle and a hawk, which might be useful." He raised an eyebrow at Teddy.

Dapple sighed heavily and lay his beak on his outstretched talons. Buckbeak, who seemed to be getting impatient again, prodded him to at least look up.

Teddy shrugged to let Donzo know to go ahead and sing the hawk song he'd been trying to push, which was about blood on the feathers and freedom in flying. Nothing particularly clicked that hadn't occurred to him before. Donzo searched his face when he finished, clearly hoping he'd had an epiphany, then looked down, as dejected as Dapple. He plucked out an old wizarding harpist's solo (from Nunnerl's Cantata), then, for some reason, played the song he'd released at the age of ten, which he hated like fire and never played anymore. About halfway through, there was a high note. He missed it spectacularly.

Maurice threw a handful of mud at him to make it stop.

Donzo Repelled the mud casually, but put his guitar away. It hadn't made any particular difference to Dapple's mood, or Teddy's.

"So much for the theory of soothing the savage breast," Donzo said. "Dad always said that was certain, too. I'm disillusioned. Do you have anything, Lupin?"

"Not today," Teddy said. "We should try Victoire. Maybe she has an especially amusing Wheeze."

"She's tried them all," Maurice said.

"What about Corky?"

"Honoria broke up with him," Donzo said. "He looks a lot like Dapple at the moment."

"Why did she break up with him?" Teddy asked, utterly mystified. He hadn't noticed anything even _different_ about them lately.

"It's a tactic," Maurice said. "She's trying to see how long it takes him to start begging her to explain herself."

Teddy couldn't imagine even Honoria being that low, but then, Lizzie Richardson _had_ tried to tell him that girls played games like that. She'd thought Ruthless was playing one last year. Maybe she was right.

"So, since we're all single," Donzo said, "shall we head into Hogsmeade this weekend?"

"Evaluation," Teddy said. "Beauty."

"Why is Beauty even a Mystery?" Maurice asked. "Isn't it more or less self-explanatory? Mud is ugly, clouds are pretty. Do I qualify for the Department?"

"Why are clouds pretty?" Donzo tried.

"Because they _are_. It's a circular definition. They're pretty because they have prettiness." Maurice gave them a prim sort of grimace. "Honestly, the pair of you. Can't things just be what they are?"

Teddy slid down off the rail and sat in the mud beside Dapple. He patted the hippogriff's feathers. "Why does it matter if something's pretty or ugly? Isn't the whole story supposed to be about how ugly things are really pretty and pretty things are really ugly?"

"Look at Honoria," Maurice muttered.

"Or Vivian Waters," Teddy added.

Donzo gave both of them a frustrated look. "But isn't that the whole question? What's beautiful? Vivian's pretty when you know her. And Honoria's much better now that she's mostly human."

"I don't think it's the whole question," Teddy said.

"So, what _is_? What are you going to ask?"

Teddy shrugged.

"That'll prove to be a grand evaluation," Maurice said. "Sorry, future employers, I just can't think of anything beautiful, because the whole world is ugly in May."

"Maurice!" Donzo hissed.

"It's all right," Teddy said. "He's got a point. I have to think of something." He scratched behind Dapple's ear. "What do you think, Dapple?"

Dapple didn't appear to think anything.

Teddy fed him a dead rat, and looked around the grounds. "Why put a school someplace so beautiful?" he asked.

"Because it's out of the way," Maurice said. "Don't you listen to the Sorting Hat song? They were trying to get away from the Muggle nobles who were chasing them down."

"Does being in an ugly place make ugly thoughts?"

"Plenty of ugly thoughts at Hogwarts," Donzo said. "Look at Geoffrey."

"Yeah, but Geoffrey hates it here. Especially the things that don't really have any point except to be... you know. Aesthetic. Maybe that's why he tries to make all of it sound ugly. I wonder if Voldemort hated it here when he wasn't pretending to love it. He certainly made a point of making it really, really ugly. Broke the castle, wrecked nice old artifacts. Killed good people here. I think he must have hated Hogwarts."

Donzo looked at him skeptically. "That's going to be your question? About _Beauty_?"

"Unless I think of a different one." Teddy sighed. "I could even do some research before I go. I think there are some branches of magic about that."

Beneath his hand, Dapple stretched his neck, then pushed from his haunches and stood up to stretch his legs.

"Shall we have a run around the paddock?" Teddy asked.

"Better idea," Donzo said. "Get on his back. Get him up in the air."

"I don't feel like it," Teddy said.

Maurice shrugged. "Neither does Dapple. Get on."

"I don't like to fly!"

But Donzo and Maurice had got the idea in their heads now, and they manhandled Teddy up onto Dapple's back. Dapple took this with good enough grace, though Buckbeak was watching the whole process with deep suspicion.

"Go on," Maurice said. "Take him for a run. Maybe he'll try to go up."

Teddy ground his teeth and shook his head. "Why would he do that? I'm not cheering him up at all."

They wouldn't take no for an answer, so Teddy urged Dapple forward, as he'd seen Roger and several other classmates do. He'd never done it himself, as he always wanted to watch for the wing motions. He leaned over Dapple's neck and prodded him to run the length of the paddock, then turn and canter toward the gate. The motion of the hippogriff was smoother than he'd thought, watching them bounce and slide off.

"Sorry about this," he whispered. "I doubt you want to be lugging me around just now."

Dapple responded by speeding up.

Teddy led him around a second lap, and thought he might run up the hill a little, maybe along the ditch, but as he ran toward the gate, he saw Maurice and Donzo raise their wands. It swung shut.

And rose into the air.

Dapple continued to speed up.

With a powerful lunge, he leapt into the air, clearing the gate... and continuing to rise.

Now Teddy could feel his wings moving, stirring the air, pushing up against it like he was swimming in it, trying for the sun. He rose with a dizzying spiral, and Teddy could see down to the ground, where Maurice and Donzo were cheering by the gate. The dark leaves of the Forbidden Forest rustled in a green carpet that seemed to go on forever. A thestral leapt up and caught a small bird.

Dapple leaned to one side to turn (Teddy had to hold on more tightly) and then headed for the castle. Windows glinted in the afternoon sun. A practice was being held on the Quidditch pitch. A group of girls at the lake were practicing perfect dives. One of them was Victoire, and she smiled up, giving him a jaunty wave. He waved back.

"Is Dapple feeling better?" she called, but there was no answering, as Dapple had already swerved away from her, going toward the forest. He gave the Whomping Willow a wide berth as he went by it, then began to circle down, down to Hagrid's paddock, where Maurice, Donzo, and Buckbeak were waiting. He touched down, and Teddy slid off, landing in the mud.

Dapple cantered away to the far end of the paddock, as if he'd done nothing at all out of the ordinary after a month and a half without flying. Teddy could think of no explanation, nothing he'd done that would change Dapple's behavior.

He turned to Donzo and Maurice. "What was that about?"

Neither of them answered. Donzo picked up his guitar and his book bag. "So," he said, "shall we start an O.W.L. revision group? I think Sunday mornings would be quite good for most of us..."


	28. All Ye Know On Earth

**Chapter 28:**

 **All Ye Know On Earth**

Teddy arrived at the Ministry on Saturday morning to find a bit of a clamor, as the new fountain with its abstract shapes had turned into the old fountain, showing different parts of the magical culture, with witches and wizards as the pinnacle of civilization. Older Ministry denizens seemed to be reminiscing fondly about dropping in donations for St. Mungo's; younger ones were griping about the horrendous symbolism. Teddy himself just blinked at it owlishly. He'd had a long, pleasant dream, from the time he fell asleep until the time he woke up, of simply flying over the countryside and the ocean with Dapple. He'd believed in the dream that Sirius was somewhere nearby on Buckbeak, but they couldn't see each other. He'd woken up feeling tired, like he really had been flying all night. It produced a strange sort of calm that the appearance of a fountain that had been bits of rubble for eighteen years just couldn't seem to break.

"How long has it been here?" he asked Maddie when she made her way through the crowd to him.

"Yesterday," she said. "A bit of a mishap with your Maze. Davies tried to magically seal it and it... er... didn't care to be sealed."

"Has it been spilling a lot?"

"Oh, little things, like I showed you the first time you came up. Silly things. It sent a pulse around that changed the Minister's desk. That was when we first brought it in. And it gave a bit of a scare to the Werewolf Registry, when they came up and found three people in a cage after the last moon. Two of them disappeared."

"Were any of them - ?"

"No. At any rate, nearly everything that appears disappears on its own in a day or two at most. Most of them are much quicker."

"Oh." Teddy followed her away from the fountain and toward the lifts.

As the lift descended, Maddie looked at him cautiously. "How are you, Teddy?"

"I'm all right. I flew on a hippogriff."

"Really?" Maddie smiled. "That sounds nice."

"It was."

She bit her lip, looked like she was about to bring something up (Teddy was willing to bet that it was Victory Day), then shook her head and apparently decided not to. "I like working in the Beauty department sometimes," she said. "It's always nice in there. What are you going to work on today?"

"Probably what everyone else does," Teddy said. "How beauty and ugliness change the way we act."

"Actually, most people go for what beauty and ugliness _are_."

"Oh. Should I do that?"

"You should ask the questions that occur to you, Teddy. Let them lead you."

The lift came to a stop at the bottom. They got out and followed the narrow corridor to the unmarked door of the Department of Mysteries. Teddy went ahead to open it for Maddie, then followed her in. The doors were already spinning.

"Beauty!" Maddie called.

The doors stopped, and the soft, golden light of the Beauty division spilled out into the black room. Teddy went in first.

The ghost Helen was hovering near the far wall, and through her, Teddy could see a rip in a mural of the Muses. She turned, seeming vexed. "Madam Apcarne," she said, "this... _violation_... recurred a few moments ago."

"And it will unoccur a moment from now," Maddie said.

"What happened?" Teddy asked.

"Some shadow of that horrid woman was here and destroyed this, as she did before." Helen shook her head and turned to Teddy. "I asked for it to be repaired many years ago, but there were other things to do - "

"Helen, it was repaired," Maddie said.

" - and now it seems to be destroyed nearly every day. It's intolerable to see!"

"What horrid woman?" Teddy asked.

Maddie hissed sharply, and said, "Bellatrix. She destroyed the mural for sport the night that Harry broke in."

"The night Sirius died," Teddy said.

Helen looked untroubled by talk of death or battles. She went back to fretting over the spoiled artwork.

Teddy turned to Maddie. "Bellatrix has been here?"

"A phantasm. She doesn't know she's here, and we can't do anything about her, and she can't do anything about us. Though I'll admit, I threw a flame spell at her when I caught a glimpse last week. Purely in the interest of research, of course."

"Did she burn?"

"No. Unfortunately."

Teddy started to say that he hoped he'd get a chance to try it, but then he thought of Greyback, crowned in flames, staggering out into the Shrieking Shack, and of Uncle Harry saying, sarcastically, _Oh, I'm sure you'd have done much better on your own. There must have been something you could have burnt down or blown up._

He looked at his feet, which barely looked like his own in the shiny new shoes Uncle Harry had got him for his Ministry visits, and tried to think of some quick penance for the angry thought. Unable to think of anything else, he went to the torn mural and began to examine the frayed edges.

Helen hovered beside him. "Why would someone _do_ such a thing?"

"I don't know. She hated everything."

Maddie cleared her throat. "Teddy, let it be. It's not a real tear, and the mending we've already done will come back."

Teddy nodded and forced himself to look away. "Do you have the Maze here?"

"Yes," Maddie said, "but I'll give you a choice. The Beauty Room has its own devices, if you'd like to use them instead."

"Like the brains?"

"More pleasant."

Teddy thought about it, then shook his head. "I'd best use the Maze. I want to see more."

"All right," Maddie said, and produced the new Maze. "Have at it, then."

Teddy put himself into the Maze, and it was certainly one of his better experiences in it. Victoire was his Guide for a good part of it, showing him through magnificent seashores, dappled forests, and grand palaces. She became Ruthless, and took him through the highlands and the austere northern islands, then she became Daniel, who led him through faraway lands where beauty fought through the ugliness of plagues, forming quiet, hallowed spots where the mind could recover. Maurice showed him the lonely beauty of the remote South Atlantic, and Donzo led him through crystal clear caves of music. Finally - to his delight - James appeared, and they looked into the wildly colored islands of Teddy's own imagination, with the deep blue sea and the impossibly huge sky above. None of it really showed the impact of ugliness, but through it all, he saw the way people responded to beauty - the slight raise of the shoulders, the deep breaths, the way troubles seemed to flow away from them as they entered places that resonated with their souls.

So why tear it down? Was it always simply hatred, as it had been with Bellatrix? Did Geoffrey truly destroy out of pure hate, or did he just not want people to relax and feel at peace? The latter seemed to fit his rants about complacency. Teddy supposed that being surrounded by things that calmed the soul might lead to just accepting things that oughtn't be accepted. But that didn't seem enough of an explanation for attempts to deface any useless thing that existed only for beauty.

He came out of the Maze an hour after going in, feeling like he was waking up from another dream. The rip in the mural had repaired itself again, and now Helen was just humming to herself as she examined a lifelike landscape that was playing itself out on another wall.

Maddie was reading a shiny looking new book - Teddy noticed with no great surprise that it had been written by the werewolf Martin Hamilton, though this one didn't seem to feature werewolves on the cover (it was a stoic looking wizard in a gray robe, under the inscrutable title _The Brilliant Glow of Shadows_ ). She didn't have any trouble putting it down to ask him about his Maze session, or lead him back to Mind to enter his memories into the tank. Something about them caught her interest (she didn't say what), and this time, she stored them in one of the brains.

"This wouldn't be a bad match for you, Teddy," she said. "Will you do me a favor and write up a report on what you saw?"

"A report?"

"I'll show you the form we use for initial reports. I'm not talking about anything long and tedious. Just... what you saw and what you're concluding." She frowned. "This may be a bit more coaching than I ought to give, but I'd like you to look at it in terms of what you saw in Faith a few weeks ago."

"How do you mean?"

"Teddy, telling you what to cross-reference it with is already more interference than I should give someone else's study. Let it lead where it will."

Teddy thought about the hours of O.W.L. revision he still had to do, and essays due for Trelawney, Flitwick, Morse, and Robards. But his mind was already trying to put together the pieces Maddie had asked him for. He nodded, and hoped that the form she was talking about really was short.

It turned out to be as short as she promised - a two page questionnaire, which left room for perhaps two hundred words in each answer. He worked on it in the library, during the plague sessions. Frankie read it over his shoulder. He didn't comment on the content, but he did ask if he might read more of the stories Teddy wrote for James.

Teddy started taking Dapple out whenever he could, though he kept it to himself, as he didn't care for the "told you so" smirks that other people tended to get - "See, I knew you'd like flying if you just tried it!"

Flying with Dapple wasn't like flying on a broomstick. On a broomstick, Teddy always had the sense of sitting still while the world sped by, the colors and sights blurring into each other until it was all a meaningless stream of movement. Quidditch flying was even worse - a few dives here and there, but other than that, just zipping around the pitch in pointless circles. On Dapple, on the other hand, he felt that he was moving through the world, instead of vice versa. He could skim the trees and see the leaves, taste the rain in the air, smell the green of the summer that was coming on like a great wave. Most of all, he could feel the motion of Dapple's muscles and the warmth of his feathers, the power of his heartbeat, the strength uncoiled with every beat of his wings.

Suspended between the earth and the clouds, far from the noise, with the world spread out beneath him like a lush map, Teddy found that he could see patterns and keep perspective in a way that was impossible on the ground. Here, he thought about the questions he still needed to ask - he was due in Identity at the beginning of June - and here, he put together the ideas that he would write later in his essays for class. He found it easy to put together the end of the story he'd been working on for James, and possible to think about the inevitability of Granny growing old. He needed to do something so that she wouldn't be alone.

Not everything made sense. Donzo's talk of the Animagus spell _wanted_ to make sense, but wasn't really coming together. What happened to Mum and Dad remained a moral mystery. Thinking about the girls in his life didn't make _that_ business any more sensible, though he looked at the year and it made him miss Ruthless enough to ask her for one long Saturday walk in the Forbidden Forest.

They found one of the lesser-used paths, and decided to head up for higher ground.

"I think I took this one first year, when Frankie and his lot first got me into their bad habits," she said, scrambling up a rocky slope. "I don't remember where it leads, though."

Teddy waited for her to reach the top, then climbed after her. "I'm guessing to some kind of clearing, with moss on the rocks."

"There's a daring prediction, Sir Seer." She punched his arm. He took her hand, and she let him hold it as she led the way further in. "It's been a while since I've done this. It's nice out here."

"We should have nicked some breakfast to bring for lunch," Teddy said.

"Maybe we can Summon something. Or catch a fish, if there's a stream."

"Do you know how to do that?"

"I go fishing with my mother sometimes. We make the boys clean the catch. I have to use a line, of course, at least for the next couple of months, but I've watched Mum do the spell." They reached another rocky ascent, and she let go of his hand to climb to the top. She balled her fists on her hips and looked ahead. "Guess what? It's a clearing, with mossy rocks."

Teddy laughed, and joined her. It wasn't even properly a clearing, just an area where the trees were a bit thinner and large boulders rested among them. There were little yellow flowers in the moss. He found a rock that had room for both of them to sit, and sat down on it. "So... can we resume nonsense over the summer?"

She looked at her hands. "I don't know, Teddy."

"Why not?"

She shrugged, and didn't say anything, but when Teddy put an arm over her shoulders, she didn't push it away, and even leaned onto his shoulder and sighed.

He pressed his cheek briefly against the familiar, springy pillow of red hair. "You were one of my guides in the Maze. In Beauty."

"That's a terrible line, Teddy."

"It's true."

"Who else was?"

"What?"

"You said I was one of them. Who else was?"

"Er... Donzo. And Maurice. And a few other people."

"Weasley?"

"Well... yes."

She nodded and sighed again, then sat up, extricating herself from Teddy's arm, but taking his hand kindly enough. "So, what did I show you?"

"The highlands up near your place. And the islands out there. The northern lights. It was nice."

"Who showed you home?"

"What?"

"Never mind." She leaned her head back and looked around the little patch of forest they were in. "If it were the real me, I'd have picked a place like this. Or maybe that forest down at McCormack's place." She grinned. "Or maybe that little patch of floor behind the tapestry. That's pretty nice, too."

"You can show me that any time you want to," Teddy offered.

She smiled in a strange way, and Teddy understood that the conversation on that point was over. They spent the next hour pleasantly enough, following a stream to a small cave that was inhabited by hundreds of sleeping fairies, then returned to the castle. She went up to her dormitory, and Teddy stayed in the Common Room. Victoire and Marie joined him there, and they were playing a lazy hand of Exploding Snap when Ruthless came back down. Her eyes looked a bit puffy. Marie started to suggest a Charm to fix it, but Victoire shot her a look that made her stop talking. Ruthless joined the game.

Teddy gave up on trying to make sense of it, and spent the next day with Donzo, Maurice, and Corky instead. Corky had also given up on sense, and most of the afternoon was spent trying to sort out an Honoria-related strategy that wouldn't involve him having to ask what she was doing, since that would mean she'd win. Maurice abstained from this activity, choosing to limit his participation to suggesting other girls, a monastery, or perhaps a house of less than stellar repute that was rumored to exist in Knockturn Alley (Maurice was under the impression that Borgin had a controlling interest in it). Donzo suggested a romantic re-asking-out, with flowers and other things that girls liked, just pretending not to have noticed the snub. Teddy thought this a bad idea, and suggested using the articles they were working on for the last issue of the Charmer to casually launch a conversation. Corky didn't think any of them were on the right track.

The next Saturday, the first in June, Teddy went to Professor Longbottom's office to Floo to the Ministry for the last of his evaluations, in Identity. To his surprise, Robards was there instead of Longbottom. He was smiling and hiding something behind him.

"What is it?" Teddy asked.

"Well, I thought you'd like to know - you have a week without the Trace coming to you this summer."

"What?"

Robards brought his hands out from behind his back. The _Daily Prophet_. He opened it. The front page was dominated by a picture taken at sea. Twenty wizards - Bill Weasley among them, Teddy noted - were aiming their wands at the rotted hull of a ship, which was gushing water as it was pulled up above the surface. The headline read, "Brimmann's Treasure: Sixteenth Century Pirate Ship Recovered Off Of Portuguese Coast." The byline was Priya Patil, a girl who had been a seventh year during Teddy's first year.

He took the paper.

 _Thanks to an unusual Hogwarts assignment, the wreck of the_ Accursed _, the ship of famed pirate Roderick Brimmann, was recovered yesterday morning by cooperative teams from magical law enforcement and Gringotts Treasure Recovery Unit, led by Bill Weasley. The ship, lost for five hundred years, was filled with treasure plundered from Brimmann's victims. Though by salvage law, Gringotts is able to claim all of the treasure, a substantial donation of it will be made to the Museum of Wizarding History at Tintagel, and chest of gold pieces will be donated to St. Mungo's._

 _The key finding came not from skilled treasure hunters or dedicated Aurors, but from fifth year Hogwarts student T.R. Lupin, who employed Divination skills to the project assigned by Defense Against the Dark Arts professor Gawain Robards..._

"'T.R.'?" Teddy asked.

"She asked what you were called 'these days,'" Robards said, "and I told her it was still 'Teddy,' but she said that if she printed that in the paper, you'd never have a chance to be 'Ted,' because everyone would always call you Teddy. So she used your initials."

"It's my name," Teddy said, then looked again. He supposed that "T.R." really did look better in print. It just felt like it was referring to someone else entirely, who might sign officious sounding letters to the _Prophet_ or charge expensive meals to his well-stocked Gringotts account. He shook his head and muttered, "T.R."

"Do you want to take it to London with you? I'm quite certain your godfather and grandmother will already have copies, possibly framed and hung up in their respective parlors, but you might want to show Mrs. Apcarne."

Teddy nodded and tucked the newspaper into his book bag, where he'd stashed some of his notes on Identity (as well as some of the first James Potter's). It hit something solid, and he heard glass clink. At the very bottom of his bag were several of the jars he'd been meant to collect samples in during the Quarantine. He'd never thought to return them to Professor Morse. He'd have to remember to do that later.

With a nod to Robards, he tossed a handful of Floo powder into the fireplace, and spun away from Hogwarts.

He got another surprise when he spun out of the fireplace at the Ministry. Maddie was waiting for him, but so was Bill, who had a small, official-looking scroll in his hand.

Teddy frowned. "Hi."

"Bill was going to write to you," Maddie said, "but I told him you'd be in this morning. We have a lot to do, but I think he has time."

Teddy looked at Bill. "What is it? Is something wrong?"

"Not unless you object to gold." Bill smiled in his disturbing way, and handed Teddy the scroll. "Have a look."

Curiously, Teddy broke the seal, and unrolled the scroll. He blinked at what he saw there, and looked back up at Bill.

Bill laughed. "Wizarding salvage law is complicated and full of little loopholes for Gringotts to get through. Fortunately, I know it well. Your information led to the wreck. You were entitled to one fourth of the take."

"But it's... so _much_."

"And it's safely in your vault. Your grandmother needs to go over your financial situation with you before you come of age. But she and I thought you'd appreciate at least a bit of it that you can spend as you choose. Call it a celebration of a job well done." He held out a small black purse, which was heavy enough for its cord to dig into his fingers.

Teddy swallowed hard and took it. "How... er..."

"How much?" Bill shrugged. "I thought two hundred Galleons ought to give you a fine summer, and it's not much of a dent."

Teddy thought that he hadn't worked nearly as hard as Jane, or used his contacts half as well as Honoria, or researched as well as Donzo. It didn't seem fair. On the other hand, two hundred Galleons... he'd just make sure to spend a lot of it on other people.

"You're buying lunch," Maddie said, and winked. "Is that all, Bill?"

Bill nodded. "I just thought nothing would quite start the day like a bit of good news."

"Thank you," Teddy said, but couldn't seem to look up from the scroll with its nearly unimaginable number for very long. He did manage to remember to shake Bill's hand before he left.

Maddie steered him toward the lifts. "You look like you're about to faint," she said.

Teddy shook his head. "No. I just... Wow. I could buy a little house or something."

"There's that much?"

"Not enough for a big house, but a little one." Teddy stopped, blinked himself back to the Ministry, and rolled the scroll back up. He put it in his book bag beside the newspaper. "Did you see the article?"

"Oh, yes... T.R."

"Don't call me T.R."

"You must realize that you've just invited me to call you that at any available moment, T.R." Maddie grinned fondly, and Teddy realized she was thinking of another name she'd once been strictly instructed to never, ever use. On a whim, he turned his hair pink, and turned up his nose. She laughed. "Oh, Teddy, I'm glad you're here."

They entered the lift, and he returned his hair to its natural brown. "Dean got upset when I reminded him of Dad. I didn't even mean to."

"Dean was your dad's student. Tonks was my best friend. I'm always glad to see a glimpse of her. I'll take them where I can get them."

The lift let them out at the bottom and they went to the Department. Maddie called for the Identity Room, which Teddy hadn't seen since a brief walk-through in his initial tour. There was a rich, wine-colored rug, zigzagging book cases, and mirrors in every available spot. There were ornate wall mirrors, claw-footed standing mirrors, small mirrors on the tops of the book cases. From the ceiling, a mirrored ball hung down, and a gold-leaf covered table at the back of the room held a selection of hand mirrors, from plain wooden frames to ornate silver set with jewels. The books on the shelves were diaries and journals.

"I added Phineas's after you brought them," Maddie said. "Judging by his portrait, he'll be happy in a room full of mirrors."

"What's the one in the ceiling for?"

"A joke someone made in the seventies," Maddie said, rolling her eyes. "Don't take everything you see at work too seriously. We all have our little in-jokes." She pinned her hair back and looked around. "I haven't spent much time here since I was looking for Sanjiv. Not a lot of good memories of the place. But I think I can still give you the tour."

She spent the next half hour showing Teddy several of the mirrors. To his disappointment, the Mirror of Erised, which Uncle Harry had told him about, was not here, and Maddie didn't know where they'd put it. She seemed less than impressed with the question. Though there was no mirror that showed desires, there was one that showed the true image - who you were at core (Teddy wasn't sure he wanted to look into it yet, and Maddie concurred), one that showed how you saw yourself (it was the same sort that had found its way into the Room of Requirement, Teddy thought, and also avoided it, as he didn't want Maddie to see him covered in Greyback's blood), and one that showed a sort of inner beast. "Interesting for Animagi," Maddie said. "And people who haven't quite got the Patronus yet. I imagine yours will show your hawk."

Teddy stepped in front of it, and indeed saw a hawk standing on a perch against a clear blue sky. There was some small rodent clamped in one strong talon, but it was the eyes that were sharpest. Teddy felt like he was being examined by the mirror instead of doing the examining.

There were two-way hand mirrors, a fascinating ancestor mirror that could trace a feature through time, and mind mirrors, which could show fantastical images of the self that still had a grain of truth in them. In this one, Teddy saw himself as a prince in a castle, his sword drawn against intruders.

"Do they all do different things?" Teddy asked.

"Some repeat," Maddie said. "And some have been useful enough that the Ministry has requested more that replicate the function. The True Image mirrors are difficult to make, but proved quite useful in the war. Your mum and Kingsley had to break several in the Auror Division before Voldemort took over, though. It wouldn't have done to have him able to spot impostors at a glance. I hoarded the rest at Badger Hill for the duration. Frankie ought to be very grounded in his own identity."

Teddy nodded. "What do they really say? I mean, other than the true image. Uncle Harry says that the Mirror of Erised didn't tell the truth, it just showed you things you wanted."

"And you think that the things you want don't have anything to say about who you are?" She rolled her eyes. "Your uncle Harry knows that, too. He's not always especially clear about what he means."

"I wonder what I'd see."

"There's no way to know. What you think you want isn't always what you really want." She bit her lip. "Teddy, why didn't you want to look into the self-image mirror?"

"Can I tell you later?"

"You may be telling me now. We need to get the Maze out." She frowned. "And I'm afraid I was overruled on this."

"Overruled?"

"I don't want you using the old Maze. But Croaker thinks that, particularly for Identity, you've bonded with it, and it will be the best chance we have to see how you work with knowledge of your inner self."

"Is it still leaking?"

"Only a little." She waved her wand, and the old Maze appeared in front of her. They'd patched up the outside, but a large chunk of wood was still missing, and Teddy could still see part of the crystal ball that formed its core. "I honestly don't know what Croaker's thinking. Please refuse."

Teddy shook his head, a part of him eager to go back into "his" Maze, where things were real, instead of protected behind sterile safety wraps. He was hungry, in a strange way, for his storm-tossed sea, and the deck of the _Accursed_.

From the crystal ball, a reddish light pulsed.

Maddie pulled Teddy back. "Careful. It does that when it's about to pulse."

It did it again.

A mirror on the table reflected the glow back. It was definitely stronger the second time.

Teddy bent down and looked into the crystal. He rarely saw anything useful in Trelawney's classes doing this, but here, he could see things moving in the glass, too small and too fast to catch. The silvery latticework around the crystal ball caught the light and passed it like lightning on wires.

It pulsed again.

Teddy stood up and backed away. "Maddie, it's feeding off of me."

"What?"

"It's - "

But there was no time to finish his thought, and it was unnecessary. With the next pulse, the Identity room flashed like it had caught fire, the surface of each mirror bouncing the power around, ricocheting, picking up speed like a pebble in a cyclone.

Suddenly, it stopped. There was a stillness in the room, a caesura, and Teddy's mind went to a foggy morning in the Forbidden Forest just in time to say, "DUCK!"

He tackled Maddie to the floor just as the Maze burst outward, sending spirals of light and energy out in a destructive wave over their heads. Glass shattered in several places, and Teddy could hear books thudding open.

There was nothing to do but wait.

The wave passed above them several times as it bounced around the reflective surfaces in the room, diminishing a little bit each time. Finally, it stopped. As it had been the morning he and Professor Longbottom had broken the Quarantine, Teddy could still hear it moving way, breaking things in its path.

"I think we're all right," he said, sitting up.

Maddie got to her feet and drew her wand. "Be careful."

"I know." Teddy pulled his own wand out, and looked around at the damage. A few of the mirrors had broken, and Teddy dearly hoped they weren't Cursed. Most had just been jostled. A light sparkle seemed to cover a lot of surfaces, but it was fading as Teddy watched. "What was Croaker _doing_ with it?" he asked. "It never blew up on me." He pulled himself up and went to the shattered remains of the Daedalus Maze. The box was kindling, and the silver filaments were a meaningless tangle of wire. The crystal ball at the core had ceased to exist, breaking into a hundred or more jagged, milky white chunks.

"We should check for damage," Maddie said. "Dammit, I told Croaker not to use that one."

Teddy shook his head. "I think it might have done it anyway."

"You said it was feeding off of you."

"Yes, but..." Teddy frowned, feeling absurd explaining something to trained Unspeakable. "I think it was dying anyway. Maybe I made it go faster, but I think... I think the old damage was too much. When the Quarantine spell went through it..." He stopped. "It overloaded. Maddie... there are a lot of things here that can overload."

She blanched. "We need to get out and check for damage," she said. "I'll check Time. You check Beauty; you had an affinity there. I'll send for the others."

Teddy nodded, and headed to the round room without further comment. He let himself into Beauty. Helen was hovering near the door, wringing her translucent hands.

"What is it?" Teddy asked.

"It's destroyed again!" she said. "And just _look!_ "

Teddy turned toward the mural, and his stomach twisted. A dark shadow seemed to stand in front of it, slashing at it with a smoky wand.

Bellatrix.

He raised his wand, then lowered it. His first instinct was to try the worst curse he could think of - the one that had killed Dad - but that sort of instinct had got him into this trouble in the first place. Instead, he sent his Patronus to Maddie with the message, "I can't do a Containment Hex, and we _really_ need one in Beauty."

A moment later, Maddie's badger came back to him and said, "It looks like it's gone into every place that the phantasms have shown up. The fountain and Voldemort's statue are both trying to occupy the same space at the moment, and there's some sort of disturbance in the Minister's office."

Teddy sent his hawk back: "Bellatrix is here."

Teddy heard the anteroom start to spin, and a moment later, Maddie was there, her wand up. Her face was set in an uncharacteristic snarl as she cast a spell at the phantasm, whose shape was becoming clearer by the second. Golden ropes of light wound themselves around it, then reached out and traced the edges of the mural. They formed a sort of blister over the entire tableau.

"Sorry," Teddy said. "I don't think she can really do anything, but I don't know the Containment Hex, and..."

"And no chances with Bellatrix," Maddie said. "I quite agree. And you're about to get a very quick lesson in Containment Hexes, as well as a free pass to do magic out of school today."

She taught him the hex with a brusque confidence that Teddy wasn't entirely used to from her, and they joined Davies and Croaker, along with several Unspeakables Teddy hadn't met yet (the names included Stinson, Chen, Tyler, and Khaladi, but he honestly had no idea which was which), going through the Ministry, level by level, finding all of the places that the Maze had leaked. Ultimately, most of the effect seemed to have been contained in items that the wave had hit - several of the mirrors, the fountain, the mural, three cages from the Werewolf Registry, a handful of dark magic items confiscated by Aurors over the years, some clerical materials, and useless bits of junk from Kingsley Shacklebolt's desk (when they'd entered his office, they'd found a shade of Dolores Umbridge torturing someone who was lying on the desk). The easiest thing to do was to contain them all in the fountain, which they did, casting a huge hex over the pile. Romilda Vane watched all of this with avid interest from the reception desk, and at the end of the day, left with Davies.

When everything seemed calm, Croaker gave a curt hand sign, and Maddie and Teddy followed him to his office, where nearly everything not tied down had ended up in the fountain.

"What, exactly, did you do?" he asked.

"What you insisted on," Maddie told him. "Teddy behaved in an exemplary manner, and - "

Croaker held up a hand. "I'm not assigning blame. Just trying to understand."

Teddy explained as well as he could what he thought had happened, and Croaker nodded in agreement. Here and there, he asked a clarifying question. Finally, he set down the quill he was using and said, "Do you have a suggestion for rectifying our current situation?"

"No. The only thing I'd have tried was going in - Phineas Nigellus's journals said that - but I guess that wouldn't have worked, and now we can't. The Maze is gone."

"Perhaps if we tried another," Croaker mused, and Summoned one. He pointed his wand at it, and disappeared. Teddy hadn't really thought about what it would look like from the outside. It wasn't very impressive.

A moment later, he emerged, shaking his head. "This one is clean. I Saw nothing of interest."

"What about a simple _Finite_?" Teddy asked, then felt utterly foolish. It wouldn't be that simple, and only a fifteen year old would think it, and -

"That was the first thing we tried, of course," Croaker said. We thought we could just stop the enchantment on the Maze. It doesn't work, much to our disappointment."

"Oh." Teddy tried to think of something so brilliant that no one in the Ministry would have thought of it already, but he came up blank. "I don't know," he said again. "I'm sorry."

Croaker examined him, then leaned forward. "Mr. Lupin, there is nothing in the Department of Mysteries that hasn't caused trouble at one point or another. Until we got those damnable Time Turners into the storage room, people kept stumbling into time loops, and it took quite a long time to extricate them, because no one noticed, they were so short. Imagine taking the same half-step four hundred and thirty times before someone noticed that you weren't getting to the door!"

Teddy said nothing.

"What I'm saying, Mr. Lupin, is that we do have experience solving these sorts of problems. It may be dicey for a little while, but you haven't destroyed wizarding Britain as we know it. And for that matter, you haven't done anything particularly wrong today. I was the fool who wanted to see how you would handle your old Maze after a cooling period."

Teddy appreciated the sentiment, but he'd heard it a few too many times. No matter what else was said, he'd broken the Maze in the first place, and it was his bond with it that had caused it to self-destruct today. None of them had been able to stop it.

But there was no question of doing further work. Maddie and Croaker both needed to get home, and Uncle Harry had already arrived to take him back to Grimmauld Place. He nodded goodbye to the Unspeakables and let Uncle Harry take him back by Side Along Apparition.

"Next year at this time, you'll be able to do it on your own," he said as they came out of the safe alleyway near the house. "Which is a profoundly troubling thought."

"Tell me about it," Teddy said.

Uncle Harry laughed. "I'm really not entirely sure how to handle it. Be patient with me."

Teddy rolled his eyes. They reached the door, and Uncle Harry let them in.

Lily came running down the stairs and flung herself at Teddy. "James made a story just for me, for my birthday!" she said. "And he said you'd tell me more of it!"

"Er..." Teddy looked at Uncle Harry, who had no suggestions, then back down at Lily. "What sort of story?"

"There was a unicorn and a whole city of fairies, and a Muggle policeman, and the prince that has Daddy's name, and a mudslide and the Amazon and an island and Meg and..."

"How were they all, er..." Teddy shook his head. "Maybe I should talk to James and find out what already happened."

Lily nodded eagerly. "They're in the courtyard by the fort."

Teddy let himself be led back to the courtyard by one hand (the ubiquitous Meg was dangling from the other). Al was sitting on one of the Black gravestones, studiously drawing a doxy. James was standing by the door of Fort Potter. He waved. "Hey, Teddy!"

"Hello!"

"You should see my paperweight," he said. "It's really bright. I think it _is_ a crystal ball."

"You have to tell Teddy the story!" Lily demanded.

"I'm writing it down," James said importantly. "I'll get it."

He ducked inside.

"It's so much fun!" Lily said. "I get to be on the Wizengamot, the youngest person _ever_ , and..."

Teddy frowned, and Lily's patter faded into the background while they waited for James to come back. It was taking too long. Fort Potter was bigger on the inside than on the outside, but not that _much_ bigger.

"James?" he called.

There was no answer.

Teddy's hands felt numb. He guided Lily over to the gravestone where Al was sitting, ignoring her altogether, and said, "Al, watch Lily and stay here."

Al put down his quill and grabbed Lily by the shoulders. "What's wrong?"

"Probably nothing," Teddy said, but his nerves didn't believe it.

 _I think it_ is _a crystal ball._

The paperweight.

From Kingsley's office.

Teddy broke into a run and entered Fort Potter.

It was empty.


	29. Clearing the Way

**Chapter 29:**

 **Clearing the Way**

"James!" Teddy ran to the far door, not really expecting anything. He poked his head out of the other side of the tent, and saw only the empty courtyard. Al came around, holding Lily's hand.

"Is something wrong?"

Teddy nodded. "Take Lily inside." He went back into the tent, hoping Al would obey him, and sent his Patronus to Uncle Harry with the message, "Come outside. Something's happened. I can't find James." He couldn't think of another way to put it. He went to the little crate that Molly Weasley had turned into a desk, and searched it, not really believing that he'd find James or anything useful, but needing to do something. On top of it, the little crystal paperweight was glowing a cheerful, cherry red. Teddy picked it up. He wasn't sure if he meant to smash it or try to see into it.

There was no answering Patronus. Uncle Harry just Apparated in.

"What's happened?"

"This thing," Teddy said, "when did Kingsley give it to him?"

"Er... I don't know. Just after the Quarantine."

"It was already in the building, then..."

Uncle Harry took him by the shoulders. "Teddy, what's happening?"

Teddy shook his head. "I don't know, Uncle Harry. I... it's the Maze... it broke, and..."

"I know! Where's James?"

"I DON'T KNOW!"

Teddy pressed his fingers against the paperweight. "Maddie said it was going into all the things that had phantasms. A bunch of things on Kingsley's desk did. If... Uncle Harry, who charmed it to glow?"

Uncle Harry shook his head. "I don't know... Teddy, what _is_ this?"

"It's crystal," Teddy said. "I think... the Maze... a crystal ball at the center... I..." He noticed he was breathing too fast, and the light in Fort Potter had taken on a queer sort of starpoint quality. "Uncle Harry, it pulsed _here_. And I think James went in!"

"What?"

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I never meant to let anything happen to James, not ever, I never meant for anything bad to happen, and - "

"How do we fix it?"

Teddy tried, without much success, to swallow the panic that seemed to have lodged in his throat. "I don't know. How can..." He stopped talking to take several quick, shallow breaths.

"I'll send for Croaker," Uncle Harry said.

"Croaker won't know, either!"

Uncle Harry took a step back, and buried his hands in his hair. "James!" he called. "James, dammit, come out!"

There was a frightening moment after that which Teddy could never remember in detail - Uncle Harry tearing through Fort Potter, pulling things off the wall, yelling for James. Teddy backed away, his mind clouded. He backed into the desk and sat down on it, hard, his weight shattering the old, moldy wood that had been the crate. Papers spilled out of it, and a large glass marble rolled away. Teddy almost disregarded this.

Then he recognized the handwriting on the papers.

"It's Phineas!"

"What?" Uncle Harry asked.

"Phineas Nigellus! It's his. And that - " He made a grab for the marble, which was rolling toward Meg the doll's cradle. "It's Ariadne's thread. We can use it to get James out!"

Uncle Harry shook his head, not understanding.

"If he got in through the paperweight, then we can, too. We can take the thread and get him out! The only way out is in!"

"Do it," Uncle Harry said.

Teddy raised his wand.

Uncle Harry grabbed his other arm. "I'm coming with you."

Teddy didn't even want to say no. Instead, he said, "Stay with me. The spell is 'Sulci Numine.'"

Uncle Harry nodded.

Teddy turned to the paperweight and cried, " _Sulci Numine!_ "

He heard Uncle Harry call the spell out with him, and then the world changed. They were on the deck of the _Accursed,_ in Teddy's storm-tossed sea. James stood placidly before them, and Uncle Harry reached out to grab him.

Teddy grabbed him. "This is a Guide. Not the real James. Don't touch him, you'll get hurt." He looked at the Guide. "Where is the real James?"

The Guide went to the prow of the ship and pointed ahead, through a sea full of triangular waves. Teddy couldn't see anywhere that James might be.

"James!" he called.

It seemed to take a long time, but, very faintly, he heard, "Teddy-eddy-eddy-eddy..." coming back over the water.

"We have to get to him," Uncle Harry said.

"I know." Teddy frowned, trying to think around his fear. It wasn't easy. He imagined James seeing visions of monsters, trying to fight them or run from them, being swallowed up as he himself had been on the night he'd tried to kill Bellatrix. "I can't do the sea," he finally said. "I don't know how to sail. I always have to use the thread. It needs to be something else... someplace I can find James... someplace... I'm sorry... I'm sorry..."

"I let him have the thing," Uncle Harry said. "I'm supposed be watching for odd things, and it was in my own courtyard. You _told_ me to watch." He looked at Teddy with desperation, but no rejection, no anger.

It calmed Teddy a bit. He forced himself to take a few deep breaths. It was the Maze. He knew his way around it. "I need... someplace I can find James. Someplace we both know." He concentrated, and stared at the Guide.

The Guide grew, became tall and lanky, with long black hair and a devil-may-care grin. Around him, the water became a sea of green trees, strung with vines, and the ship became only a high hill from which they were all looking down on the expanse of jungle.

"Sirius," Uncle Harry whispered.

"It's the story James and I were writing," Teddy said. "He's lost in the jungle. James will know this place, too." Teddy started down the hill.

Uncle Harry caught him. "Are you sure, Teddy?"

Teddy shook his head, but said, "I _think_. But I think I'm right."

Uncle Harry looked at him for a long time, then nodded soberly. "Then I think that's the best we can do."

"James!" Teddy yelled again.

Again, far away, "Teddyyyy!"

Teddy looked out over the trees in the direction the sound came from. A mountain - a volcano, of course - reached up above the canopy. Steam came out of the cone. "There's the center," he said.

Uncle Harry nodded. "How do we get there?"

"We get through the Maze. The Guide will help." Teddy nodded to the vision of Sirius.

"I hate mazes," Uncle Harry said. "Is there any way to get broomsticks?"

"I don't know. I never thought of it. But..." He concentrated as hard as he could on becoming a hawk, but nothing happened, other than his eyes changing. Now, he could see the details of the canopy, the birds moving, the monkeys swinging through the vines.

"James!" he yelled. "Climb a tree!"

There was a pause, then motion from one of the taller trees. It was halfway to the mountain.

"Are you all right?" Uncle Harry called.

"Fi - !"

The answer was cut off by the shriek of a wild animal.

Uncle Harry lurched forward. "James!"

"Don't touch anything!" Teddy yelled into the forest, then followed Uncle Harry down into the Maze.

There was no polite investigation in the flight through the jungle, no fascinating exploration of by-ways. The Guide, as Sirius, led them into the tangled undergrowth, and Uncle Harry slashed it viciously with his wand to get it out of the way and keep them moving quickly. The Guide changed partway through, becoming the first James Potter. Uncle Harry had ceased to notice this, and Teddy didn't point it out. James led them toward the muddy shore of a river, which twisted through the land, with trees coming close enough to it to block off some paths of the Maze.

"We have to be getting close," Uncle Harry said. "JAMES!"

"Daddy?... addy... addy... addy?"

The return scream came from the far side of the river, beyond a hill. Uncle Harry ran toward it, but stopped at the water's edge. He looked over his shoulder. "The river's a Maze barrier, isn't it?"

Teddy nodded. "Don't try going through. I don't know what would happen."

"How far upstream can you see?"

Teddy peered through his hawk's eyes - Uncle Harry hadn't even commented on them - and saw a blocking wall of vegetation not far ahead. "We'd get forced further away," he said. "We need to find a way across. A - " He turned downstream. The path was clear, and far off, just at the limit of his vision, he saw the too-regular shape of a bridge. "This way!" he said. "We can cross further down."

Uncle Harry didn't argue. He let Teddy lead, but not by far.

The bridge was closer than it had looked - Maze-space was deceptive. Relief washed through Teddy as they came around a bend in the path. The pilings of the bridge were visible, and he came around them. They just needed to go across and -

Something dragged him backward, and he realized Uncle Harry had a hand on his shoulder.

"Stay back, Teddy," he hissed.

Teddy looked up.

In the middle of the bridge, in a bar of bright tropical sunshine, was a huge gray werewolf.

"It's Greyback," Teddy said, unnecessarily. "He's been in the Maze before. He blocked my way." Uncle Harry didn't say anything, so Teddy looked over his shoulder. He was pale and his eyes were sunken. Teddy shook his head. "We have to get past. He should be a guide. He should act like the others."

"You said he didn't," Uncle Harry said. "Teddy..."

There was a crash and a scream on the other side of the river, and the discussion of the Guide, tenuous to begin with, ended. Uncle Harry ran forward.

"James!"

The answer was much closer. "Dad?"

"James, be careful!" Teddy yelled. "We're coming! Can you see the river?"

"No!"

The werewolf took a step forward, snarling, saliva dangling from its long, pointed teeth. Its claws made ominous clicking sounds on the bridge.

"Think of it!" Teddy looked around quickly. "It's muddy and it has piranha, and there's a bridge."

A moment later, James called, "There it is! I'm coming!"

The werewolf looked over its shoulder, then looked at Teddy with malicious cunning. It turned toward the far side.

"No!" Teddy nearly threw Ariadne's Thread - which was clasped in one of his sweaty hands - at it, but thought better at the last minute and drew his wand instead. He didn't want to try cursing a Guide, as he didn't know where it would end up, but he wasn't going to let it go after James.

It stopped and turned again, seeming to smirk.

"We're going through," Uncle Harry said. His voice was low and authoritative.

The werewolf growled, far back in its throat, and the growl became a horrible, high-pitched laugh as it rose onto its haunches and became Bellatrix Lestrange, black hair tossing back in the wind (it was, for some vile reason, tied back with the pink tulle headband Teddy had found in Mum's wardrobe last summer), a long knife in one hand. She mimed grabbing someone and slitting his throat, then began to bleed herself, a horrible flow that came from her neck and flowed out over the edge of the bridge into the water, turning it red, to flow into the blood-red sea.

Uncle Harry set foot on the bridge.

Teddy flicked his wand and pulled him back.

"Don't touch her!" he said. "That's how I got hurt."

The trees on the far side of the river parted, and James burst out. He looked frightened, but exhilarated. "I did it!" he said. "Teddy, I'm here!"

Bellatrix smiled obscenely, licked her knife, and turned.

Teddy didn't think this time. Thinking would have been too slow. He simply removed the bridge from his mind.

It took perhaps a second - James and Uncle Harry were holding it as well - but it was Teddy's Maze. The bridge shimmered, then disappeared in a burst of dust, sending Bellatrix down into the water. She screamed, and became a blur of red, until only the tulle headband remained of her.

Teddy Summoned it, not caring, for the moment, what would happen, just wanting to stop that particular obscenity. He caught it, and his fingers went numb. There was no chance of keeping it. Carefully, he set it down on a rock.

"Teddy!" James called. "Daddy, can I swim?"

"No!" Uncle Harry called, then turned urgently to Teddy. "How are we going to cross? Can you get the bridge back?"

Teddy tried to imagine it, and it started to form, shadowy images of struts and pylons.

The river surged, and washed it away. Water sloshed up onto the banks.

Teddy took a step back. "The river's rising," he said.

Even as he said it, he could hear it flowing hard and fast. The red flood drenched then buried reeds and vines. On lower ground, downriver, Teddy could already see it making inroads into the jungle itself.

"Get to high ground!" he shouted.

"Get there yourself!" Uncle Harry pulled him backward, dragging him up a sloping rock that rose up from the river bank. "James! Climb back in the tree!"

James didn't answer.

Teddy peered across the growing river. James had climbed the tree already, but the river was raging beneath him, and he was clinging for life. Uncle Harry was grasping Teddy hard under the shoulders, but his eyes were on his son.

"Teddy... how?"

Teddy shook his head and pulled free, scrambling further up the rock. The river of blood was already lapping at the bottom. It had picked up the tulle headband again, and tossed it upward, where it glimmered and grew and began to take shape again.

"Uncle Harry, move away! Bellatrix is coming back."

Uncle Harry backed up.

The Guide-shape shifted like a flame tasting firewood, licking upward and twisting itself into a female shape. Her mad smile came first and Teddy braced for an attack when there was nowhere to go. Next came her high cheekbones, the flame settling into her eyes, and the bright lines of her hair. Her pink hair.

Gratefully, Teddy let down his guard and started toward her, hoping that Mum as a Guide would lead him out, but Uncle Harry cut in front of him, wand drawn. "Let him be!"

Mum laughed, but it was still Bellatrix's laugh, still her mad eyes.

Teddy stumbled backward up the rock. "No..."

"It's not her, Teddy," he said. "We have to get out of here. Now. All of us."

"I don't know... how can... no, it's not..." Teddy sat down hard, his hand flying up to the chain around his neck, where Dad's wedding ring rested. He grasped it tightly, more for security than any hope of help, but somewhere, faintly, another world formed in his mind, a memory world, a day at falconry. He could feel his mother's/grandmother's arms steadying him, and the heavy leather gauntlet on his/Dad's right arm.

"Stay back," Uncle Harry warned the Guide. She was crawling up now, crabwise, her tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth. She'd been blocking the way. All along. It was her ship, not Brimmann's. It was always her. Always _them_.

Teddy shook his head against it. The Maze was only his own mind, they weren't hurting him, but how could he make them into monsters like this? Uncle Harry had to hate him, seeing what was in his mind. He'd murdered Greyback, and now he was murdering his own parents, and...

The memory tried to come in again, the cool wind on the sea cliff, the moist stone of the wall. But this time, he was seeing through the hawk's eyes, as he had in his dream, and he saw Dad there, saw the eyes of the small, ill-used boy starting to light up in wonder at the creature resting on his arm.

"Fly," the boy said. "Go!"

What went through his mind came not in words, but in images. Donzo had told him, there were no words, but he'd tried to make it words anyway. That had been the mistake, the thing that had kept him on the ground. He saw himself on Dapple's back, high above the Forbidden Forest. He saw the world through his hawk's eyes, as he'd first seen it two years ago, when he'd stood guard with Lee and George, and simply tried to morph. He saw himself with blood on his hands, and he saw Dapple with a bloody rat dangling from his beak. He saw Dad's hawk, flying out over the North Sea, and he saw his Patronus bursting from his wand for the first time.

"Teddy? Are you all right?"

He looked up. "I know what to do. Hold her here. I think she'll follow me, but if she doesn't, just don't let her touch you."

"Teddy?"

"I know what to do," he said.

And transformed.

Uncle Harry's eyes widened, but Teddy found that he couldn't say anything. His mouth was hard and strange, and his arms felt too large and powerful. He could see everything - the weak morph he'd done on his eyes before seemed child's play. There were planes and angles he'd never suspected, crisp shadows and sharp edges. The red of the river was a thousand reds, a million, and he could see motes being violently pushed along its raging current. On the far side, he could see James, a small figure moving in the tree. He wanted to get there; his instinct was to hunt the thing that was moving, but he still had his own mind, his own sense of it being James, who he was protecting.

Something flashed in the sun, and he saw Ariadne's Thread slip out from under his wing, toward the convulsing thing that no longer looked like Mum at all. In the hawk's vision, it was just an extension of the poison river.

Teddy scrambled forward, knowing that there was no time to fumble in this form. Years of shapeshifting had taught him to adjust more quickly than Donzo had been able to. He stuck out one foot, with its powerful talon, and grasped the little glass marble in it. He looked at Uncle Harry.

"Go," Uncle Harry said tersely. "Go, Teddy."

He spread his wings, as he'd watched Dapple do all year, and ran across the rock, feeling the wind beneath them as he moved them powerfully down against it.

He gained the sky.

On Dapple, he'd thought of flying as something like swimming through the air, but that wasn't even close to the sense he had now, the feeling of riding currents of air over the roiling river. He had to veer around some of them, but some part of him - some part of his hawk's mind - could sense those before he hit them. He rose high over the river, avoiding the surface currents, and found a cooler column to circle down on.

He reached James's tree and landed on an upper branch. There was no question of flying down low enough in the branches, and he wasn't at all sure what he meant to do now. James was too heavy to fly with.

 _I have to go back to myself._

And with the thought, it was so. He had the presence of mind to reach down and catch Ariadne's Thread before it fell from his now-human foot.

"James!" he called down. "I'm going to get you out of here."

"Can I fly, too?"

"I don't think so."

"I didn't mean to come in. I just looked in my paperweight and I saw the volcano."

Teddy nodded, distracted, trying to think of what to do. He didn't think he'd be able to build a bridge again, and the river was a Maze barrier, so he doubted he'd ever be able to control it, no matter how much he imagined. He had to get James out, get down to him with Ariadne's thread, then go back for Uncle Harry and -

The tree rocked wildly, and the upper trunk cracked. Teddy looked down. The werewolf was back, battering at it, trying to shake them free. Across the river, Teddy could see Uncle Harry, now backed up against the deeper jungle, but not holding off a Guide anymore.

"Teddy!" James called.

"I'm coming."

But the Maze made a liar of him.

The werewolf took another run at the tree, and it shook crazily. Teddy's weight pulled down on the treetop, and a mighty breaking sound rose over the sound of the river. Teddy felt himself pulled down, thrown into another tree. A drowsing snake awoke with a hiss. He fought to hold onto Ariadne's Thread.

"Teddy, help!"

He pulled himself up.

James had climbed to the broken top of the tree, but the werewolf was climbing steadily up after him.

There was no choice.

Teddy steadied himself and braced himself with his legs, then took his wand in one hand and Ariadne's Thread in the other.

"James, catch!"

James held out his hand, and Teddy Levitated the Thread across the chasm. He waited until James had his fingers wrapped around it, then yelled, "Home!"

James had time to look up, his face a circle of dazed surprise, when Ariadne's Thread glowed white, then simply disappeared. As he went, Teddy noticed part of the canopy disappearing around him - just small things here and there, but the part of the Maze that had been James's creation, to which Teddy himself had paid no attention until they vanished.

"He's safe!" Teddy called across the river.

"Are you all right?" Uncle Harry yelled.

There wasn't a simple answer to that question, so Teddy didn't answer it. Instead, he braced himself to turn back into a hawk to get across the river. He expected it to come with a great fanfare of images and memories again, but instead, his body seemed to know it instinctively, as it knew how to walk across a room, or climb stairs, or eat when it was hungry. He spread his arms and they became wings, and he was aloft.

This time as he flew, he looked down river, the direction he and Uncle Harry had come from. The river had flooded out much of the Maze. They couldn't go back the way they'd come.

He landed on the rock beside Uncle Harry and transformed back to human shape.

Uncle Harry raised his eyebrows. "How long have you been doing _that?_ "

"First time," Teddy said, looking away. "James should be fine. I lost the thread. We have to find another way out. The way back is flooded."

"Teddy... I'm not going to tell anyone."

"Maybe I could only do it in the Maze, anyway. I might not be breaking the law - "

"I don't mean about the hawk business, which as an Auror I will take your word is just a side effect of the Maze, until you come of age and register. I meant..." He nodded toward the far side of the river, where the werewolf Guide was still prowling.

Teddy looked at it. "It's not Greyback, is it?"

"I can't say for sure," Uncle Harry said. "You never saw either of them transformed, so it's just a general idea of a werewolf, but..." He sighed. "I don't think it's Greyback. Just because of the other."

Teddy felt shamed tears rising, and pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes to stop them. "I don't think of them like that, Uncle Harry. I _don't!_ I swear I don't."

There was a long pause, then he heard Uncle Harry come over, and a heavy hand fell on the back of his shoulders. "Of course you do," he said.

Teddy shook his head.

"I tried to kill Bellatrix when she killed Sirius," Uncle Harry went on conversationally. "I chased her up through the Ministry, and I tried the Cruciatus Curse on her, and I very genuinely wanted her dead."

"I wish you _had_ killed her."

"So do I, for a lot of reasons that came later, your mother first on the list." Teddy looked up, surprised that the lecture hadn't been about how glad he was he hadn't done it. Uncle Harry sighed went on. "But it wouldn't have helped with Sirius, would it? It would have felt like just as much of a cheat after as it did before."

Teddy thought about kicking Greyback through the fireplace, destroying the man who'd destroyed Dad's life. He shook his head. "It wouldn't have changed anything."

"But you think about it a lot, don't you?"

"No! I never think about Greyback."

Uncle Harry didn't even acknowledge this. "You shouldn't have had to do that."

Teddy swallowed hard and got to his feet. "You shouldn't have had to deal with Voldemort, either, but someone had to. We should find a way out."

He thought Uncle Harry might push the subject, but he didn't. Instead, he got up and said, "Can you fly over and find a path?"

"I could try."

"You don't sound hopeful."

Teddy shook his head. "No. Phineas's journals - and the letter from Dumbledore's dad - "

"The what?"

"Oh, right. He and Phineas worked on this together. Gordon Burke, too, and a bunch of others. They got in a mess with it, and Apis - that's Percival Dumbledore - said 'The only way out is in.' That doesn't sound like flying around and looking for a different path out." Teddy hoped his voice sounded more confident than he felt.

"Was that before or after he went to Azkaban?"

"Before. But he did use it to handle Azkaban better."

"You said that the volcano is the center of the Maze. What's going to be there?"

"I don't know. I never made it to the center. But I think that's where we need to go." He bit his lip. "It'll probably erupt."

"Either that, or there'll be a giant spider and a Portkey." Uncle Harry shuddered. "You could fly _that_ direction."

Teddy shook his head. "The river's still rising. And if I go there and find a way out, the whole thing could come down. You have to get out with me." He considered it. "I could fly ahead a little at a time, though. That way, we won't run into walls."

Something nudged Teddy's foot, and he looked down. The river had come up the rock, and the red rapids were tugging at his trainer laces. Downriver a few meters, he saw something struggling to gain solid ground.

"We'd better go," he said, trying not to let any fear into his voice. "Before Granny shows up as Voldemort or something."

Uncle Harry gave him a shrewd look, and Teddy wondered if he was thinking it wasn't a joke, that Teddy was imagining Granny as a monster as well. If he _was_ thinking that, he didn't say it. He just said, "What's the best way to higher ground?"

Teddy looked around, then remembered that he had a better option and transformed again, taking off on a warm current rising from the rock. The land on the far side was higher, and a brief rise led back to the path they'd been on. He looked ahead, and saw a dead end if they didn't turn deeper into the jungle, but he thought he'd be able to spot the turn on the ground. The whole jungle was rising to the roots of the mountain, which looked peaceful at the moment, though Teddy didn't trust it in the least.

He swooped down and landed atop one of the Maze's barrier lines, trying to get a sense of things. Through his hawk's eyes, he could see the breakage in the Maze, the damage that he'd somehow caused that first night, when he'd grabbed at Bellatrix's throat and held on, trying to choke the life from her, or at least choke off the laughter that had come from her after she'd killed Mum. In this shape, he could think of it dispassionately. He had wanted to kill her, as he'd killed Greyback. No internal mechanism expressed horror in the hawk, which was, after all, a killer in its own right.

But it had broken the Maze somehow, broken along the lines of Teddy's own anger, and now it was spilling into the world, into things it had no business touching, rising like the river overflowing its banks below.

Teddy blinked this away. It was amazingly easy in this shape; he could understand Sirius now, transforming in his cell to stay sane. He looked ahead, over the tangled lines of the jungle Maze, toward the volcano. Near the summit, he could see something glinting in the sun, the glare too bright to see precisely what it was.

But he knew that, whatever it was, it was the place they needed to be, and the only way out.

He did his best to memorize the lay of the Maze to get to the mountain, wishing he had a Marauder's Map here to remind him and tell him where the dangers would be, then flew back to the rock and transformed. "I know where we're going," he said.

Uncle Harry nodded. "Then let's go. Lead the way."


	30. The Only Way Out

**Chapter 30:**

 **The Only Way Out**

Teddy scrambled back to the top of the rock and waited for Uncle Harry. He pointed down the rough-made path they'd been on. "We'll need to follow this for a while, but we'll turn further into the jungle about" - he indicated the spot where he thought the new path would be - "there. Just find a way to keep going up."

"And the Guides?" He pointed ahead, where Teddy saw a lurking form in the shadows. He couldn't tell who it would be.

"I don't know. Be careful of them."

"I'll keep that in mind."

Together, they descended to the path. Uncle Harry slowed, and Teddy looked ahead to the Guide, who was coming into view. It was a sandy-haired boy in Hufflepuff Quidditch robes.

"This one's mine," Uncle Harry said. "Cedric Diggory."

"Oh." The name sounded familiar to Teddy, but there were so many names, he couldn't place it at the moment. "Is he dangerous?"

"He shouldn't be." Uncle Harry didn't sound terribly convinced of this.

Teddy approached him with caution. He had a pleasant face, and kind gray eyes. "Show us the way in," he said.

Diggory turned and started up the path. He paused, then looked over his shoulder at Uncle Harry. The breeze was becoming colder, and the sky was dark. Green light flashed out, and Teddy felt himself pulled backward. The jungle had disappeared, and Cedric Diggory lay dead on the ground in an old graveyard. Above him was Peter Pettigrew, much older than Teddy's memories of him tended to be, but still recognizable.

"Wormtail," Uncle Harry said.

Peter nodded soberly, and Teddy realized that he had become the Guide. He turned his back and headed down a new path - the one, Teddy realized, that he'd seen as a hawk, though it was no longer in the jungle, and there was no mountain. Instead, the Maze was blocked off with gnarled old trees, cast iron fences, and gravestones.

"We need to follow him."

Uncle Harry nodded. "Maybe you should stay behind me. If he's taking us where I think he's taking us, then..." He trailed off.

"Voldemort?"

"Yes."

Teddy followed Uncle Harry down the path, and it opened up into a chamber. Inside of it, there was, again, the body of Cedric Diggory, but now, it was off to the side. A golden cup lay upended on the ground, and a golden light suffused everything. There was a cage of light ahead, and in it, Uncle Harry was suspended in midair. Across from him was a face that had been excised from most textbooks, which had only used his name - Tom Riddle. Their wands were connected by a trembling line of light.

Uncle Harry - the real one - stopped, his face pale and drawn.

As Teddy watched, Riddle's wand seemed to explode, and human figures poured from it. One was Cedric Diggory. There was also an old man and -

He looked at Uncle Harry. "Are those your parents?"

"Yes." Uncle Harry watched them, troubled. "It was - It's not something that I ever wanted in the history books, and the only person alive to add it wasn't interested in mentioning it."

"Who?"

"Lucius Malfoy. I suppose some of the others might have seen it, but I think only Lucius knew what he was seeing."

"What _are_ we seeing? Are they talking to you?"

"Just shades of them." Uncle Harry shook his head sharply and turned to Teddy, obviously with some difficulty. "There was a peculiar phenomenon with my wand and Voldemort's. The same sort of core... I... when they met, it forced his to... Have you heard of Priori Incantatem? We don't use it nearly as much as it used to be used. Your spells are your business and - "

"I know the spell."

"Right. It forced it. He killed them, and they came back with the spell, at least until we broke the connection. They gave me time to get away."

"So you saw them _twice?_ "

Uncle Harry blinked slowly, then said, "Not _them_. Shades of them."

"But they didn't hurt you, either time."

"Are you..." He grimaced and took a decisive step away from the tableau. "I'm not having this fight with you again."

Teddy was momentarily confused by the response. He hadn't been thinking of their fight, only of Mum becoming Bellatrix in the Maze, but of course, that was the sum of it, wasn't it? He shook his head and looked for a new path. The land was rising toward some hills on the far side of the graveyard, and Peter the Guide was waiting there. "Come on," he said. "We need to get out of here."

"I agree. I'm not sure I trust Wormtail to get us anywhere good."

"I'm not sure we're going anywhere good. Let me find out." Teddy transformed again, to get a feel for the lay of the Maze. Below him, Wormtail looked oddly pleased.

Well, why shouldn't he? He'd been one of Teddy's teachers in the matter, after all.

The countryside spread out in the velvety night, the roads forming glowing paths among wild, heathery hills. Where the volcano had been, there was now a cottage Teddy had seen before, on a lonely street in Godric's Hollow. Whatever had glimmered on the mountainside was now there, in an upper room.

He flew back to Uncle Harry and returned to his normal shape. "I think we're headed for your old house. I doubt it'll be that when we get there, though."

Uncle Harry nodded. "I apologize in advance for any more of my old friends we may come across."

Peter led them down a narrow country road, past a cottage Teddy didn't know at all, which Uncle Harry told him they were absolutely not stopping to look at. Not far past it, Peter changed again, growing tall and thin, his hair and beard long and silvery white. Dumbledore led them further, as the Maze changed around them again, becoming a cold and dark cave with a lake at its core, and an island in the middle of the lake became the center of the Maze. As they wound their way around the lake, Dumbledore became Regulus Black.

"You could fly to the island," Uncle Harry said. "Get whatever that is."

"And if it tries to send me home without you?"

"Then go."

Teddy stopped and looked at him. "Are you mad?"

"There should be a boat here somewhere..."

"I'm not leaving you in the Maze."

"The lake is full of Inferi, if it's anything like the real one."

"This is the one that...?"

Uncle Harry nodded.

Teddy looked at Regulus, who looked back with the placid expression of any guide that wasn't Mum or Dad. He'd been boiled in this lake, too badly for anyone to recognize his body, when the other Inferi were cleaned out.

"We can't do the water," Teddy said, then nodded to Regulus. "Can you show me the way?"

Regulus nodded, and stepped out onto the water. As he did, the Maze changed again. The water became a narrow dirt road, winding through the highlands on a moonlit night. Regulus changed as well, first into a long-faced, greasy-haired boy that Teddy recognized from Dad's memories as Severus Snape, then into a huge stag, its antlers nearly glowing in the soft starlight.

Uncle Harry stopped. "We're outside Hogsmeade."

Teddy looked around. He didn't recognize the road, but Uncle Harry had spent more time here than he had. It led up a hill, twisting out of sight behind a line of trees.

Prongs cantered on ahead, going around the bend in the road. Teddy wasn't surprised that when he came back, he'd become Padfoot.

Teddy and Uncle Harry reached the bend, and came around. Now, small paths went off in many directions. They were getting close to the nexus. Down all of the paths, Teddy could see glimpses of the past, of the future, of his own weary mind. Tirza's ship appeared to be cruising along above a moor, and the volcano of the first island was nestled cozily among the Scottish mountains. From the deepest shadows, Teddy could see the glimmering thing at the center, only now, it was several things, broken pieces, lying on the ground.

He had to put them together.

It was that simple.

He looked over his shoulder at Uncle Harry, meaning to just tell him that he'd figured it out, and it wouldn't be too difficult after all. But Uncle Harry stopped dead as he turned, his shoulders tense.

"What is it?"

"Teddy... the moon."

Teddy looked up.

The moon came out from under a cloud, and it was deep, blood red. It bathed the Maze's landscape in gore.

And Teddy suddenly recognized the road he was on. He and Uncle Harry had traveled it together many times.

Slowly, he turned his head again, and looked toward the center of the Maze.

The road rose slowly up the place that was coming to be known as Screech Hill, but Screech Hill was no longer empty and barren. The broken, glowing pieces of the Maze were strewn in the unkempt front garden of the Shrieking Shack.

Crouched at the rusty gate, blocking the way, was Dad. He looked up at the moon and smiled horribly, his mouth full of Greyback's sharpened teeth.

Uncle Harry leveled his wand at the phantasm and said coldly, "We're going through."

It laughed and took a shambling step forward, raising one clawed hand at Teddy. The hand turned over, and a long finger beckoned.

"Change shape!" Uncle Harry hissed. "Now!"

It responded only by turning to look at him with a sneer, then looking back at Teddy. The Guides had never spoken before, but now it said, in a gravelly, inhuman voice, "Come, then."

Teddy took a step backward. The thing in front of him was Dad, but it couldn't be, not with blood dripping from its hands, and mad red light in its eyes. He tripped over a rock and sat down hard in the road. "No. You're not real..."

The thing with Dad's face was suddenly above him, not quite touching him, but with one hand poised over his head.

"Get back!" Uncle Harry yelled, and then the thing was dragged away. Teddy could see Uncle Harry's hands sinking into its insubstantial flesh.

"Uncle Harry, no! Let go!" Teddy scrambled to his feet and ran at the pair of them. Dad had grabbed Uncle Harry's wrist and was trying to pry him loose. Uncle Harry was going pale and cold from the contact.

Teddy ran at them, a scream coming from somewhere deep in his throat. He ran into them at top speed, knocking Uncle Harry to one side and tackling the Guide to the ground. Immediately, he felt pain tearing through his nerves, and he knew he couldn't hold on, or the Maze would just expel him again, and he'd have to start all over, but some part of him wanted to keep pushing until the vile thing let go of his father's form.

With all of his remaining strength, he drew up his legs and kicked them out like pistons, throwing the thing off of him, toward the shadows. He lurched over to Uncle Harry and hooked an arm under his shoulders to drag him toward the house. "Come on. We have to go."

The Guide made another lunge, and Teddy drew out Dad's wand, not caring that the Marauder's Map came out along with it. He simply understood - _knew_ \- that only the reality of his father's wand could send the vision away. He jabbed it toward the Guide, and shouted "Confringo!" The wand jittered out of his hand, and the Guide - who seemed to recognize it - made a grab for it, but the spell hit, and the vision disintegrated.

Teddy fumbled for the wand and the Map, and stuck them back under his robes.

Teddy's heart was beating too fast and too hard, and Uncle Harry seemed not to have total control over his legs. Together, they nearly fell into the garden. One piece of glowing crystal lay at Teddy's feet, and he picked it up. It didn't give him the pain of touching one of the Guides, but he did cut his palm on one jagged edge. It traced the line of the scar that the Resurrection Stone had left on him four years ago.

"What is it?" Uncle Harry asked, limping toward another piece.

"I don't know. A crystal ball, maybe. That's what's at the center of the Maze. Maybe that's what we can see it as..." Teddy looked down at it absently, then stared, transfixed. In one of the facets of the shard, he saw the road outside the Shrieking Shack. Dad was backing away, dragging Mum, pulling her arms back as she screamed and tried to raise her wand to attack position. And he could _hear_ her screaming, "THEY CAN'T HAVE IT! IT'S MY LIFE AND THEY _CAN'T HAVE IT!_ "

"Teddy, watch out!"

Uncle Harry's voice cut across the vision, and Teddy looked up in time to see the Guide reforming, this time as Mum, barely resembling Bellatrix now, except in the madness. She was only feet away from him. Bella's knife was grasped in one fist as she crawled toward him.

He pulled her wand from his holster and leveled it at her. She smiled madly.

"Conf..." He shook his head. "Avada..."

She laughed.

"Captivus!" he finally shouted, and silvery-pink bars of light rose up around her.

She slashed at the bars with the knife. It went through them, but they re-formed and held her there.

Teddy backed away from her, keeping his eye on her efforts to escape. He went to Uncle Harry, who had picked up the second piece of crystal. In this one, Teddy saw Greyback, clinging to the back of the fireplace. _"Oh, she was dead by the time I got there, barely started healing him before Bella took her out. But your dad was alive. You might say I was holdin' his hand when he finally karked it... Shoved her off him, too, so he'd have room to breathe his last few breaths, which I hear he didn't have the last year or so. But I reckon I'll take you with me, and when the moon comes up in a few days, I'll give you everything she tried to take from your dad."_

Teddy snatched it away.

Uncle Harry put a hand on his shoulder. "Teddy, why didn't you tell me what he said?"

"I told you he told me how they died. I thought you'd have guessed he didn't give an especially sympathetic account. What, was I meant to _repeat_ that?"

"No. But - " Uncle Harry stopped, then said. "We'd best get the rest.

"Wait." Teddy took the two pieces carefully, and put them side by side. Two facets seemed to match, and he pressed them together. The red glow became more pronounced, then they fused. Now, Teddy could see Dad walking through the Forest with Uncle Harry, looking perfectly happy. He looked away.

Uncle Harry stumbled to a third piece, which lay in the grass beside a huge boulder. Neither of them looked into it, except in passing. There was a glimpse of Sirius there. Teddy found where it fit, and the whole came closer together. There were four spaces left, if it was to be a sphere.

"Seven," Uncle Harry whispered.

"There could be a dozen shards in each spot," Teddy said.

"But there aren't. There'll be seven pieces altogether. Let's get them. Now." He crawled away, searching.

Teddy cast about for more of the faint glow from the crystal, but only saw one spot, near the door. He went to it, nearly breaking through the rotten boards on the steps. This one showed Granny in the garden at home, an empty drink glass in one hand, falling to her knees and weeping. Teddy added it to the others. Now, he could see the smoky Forest, at the end of his first year. He could see himself, unconscious, and the form behind him, thin and insubstantial, comforting him. In the distance, he could hear Uncle Harry shouting for him.

"I can't find the others."

Teddy looked up from the fragment of the crystal ball. Uncle Harry had crawled to the steps. His glasses were askew and his face was filthy.

Teddy looked around. The cage he'd trapped the Guide in was empty, and it was the only thing glowing in the garden. He looked at Uncle Harry. "They're inside."

Uncle Harry looked tired, weary beyond his years. He sighed. "Of course. Can you get in?"

"You gave me the keys," Teddy said. He reached out, and the iron keys Uncle Harry had given him for Christmas two years ago appeared. One went to the front door. The other would fit into a spot above the fireplace, to connect it to the Floo.

Teddy got to his feet, and opened the door.

The entrance hall was an inferno, and Greyback's body lay on the floor to the parlor. Dad's drawings were burning, the werewolf children he'd saved being consigned to a bright hell.

Teddy went inside.

The flames weren't real; they brushed him like warm feathers and left him otherwise alone. He signaled to Uncle Harry that it was all right.

Not that Uncle Harry had waited for the signal.

Together, they made their way to the kitchen, which was still stained with Greyback's blood. One piece of glowing crystal lay on the floor, among the knives Victoire had spilled. Teddy grabbed it. In it, Bellatrix was ranting about pulling weeds from the garden. He found the place where it fit into the whole, and the vision there changed again, to the night he and Uncle Harry had fought, and he'd run pell-mell into the Forest.

"I've another!" Uncle Harry called.

Teddy staggered after him, into the dining room, where he was kneeling beside the body of Severus Snape. A piece of glowing crystal was lodged under Snape's knee, and Uncle Harry pulled it out, trying not to look. He gave it to Teddy, and crawled away from the body, leaning against the wall with his head in his hands.

Teddy put it into the crystal ball, and saw Uncle Harry, with Ron and Hermione, standing here the first time, taking Snape's memory, so he would understand who the man had been.

"One more," Teddy said, and pulled himself over to Uncle Harry. "Just one, if you're right."

"I am," Uncle Harry said.

"I'm so sorry."

He shook his head, but instead of saying it wasn't anything Teddy needed to be sorry for, he said, "Thank you, Teddy."

Teddy pulled Uncle Harry's arm over his shoulder and together, they entered the parlor. The fireplace was burning green, and the wallpaper was bright red with crawling flames.

"There!"

Uncle Harry pointed to the last piece of crystal, lying atop the mantel. Above it was the drawing of Mum that Dad had once done, which they had - thankfully - taken to Granny's, and which still hung in the living room.

"I'll come back with it," Teddy said.

Uncle Harry let him go. His legs were weaker now, and he just sat down heavily.

Teddy bit his lip and went to get the last piece. He'd have to wait until he was with Uncle Harry again before putting it all together, in case it just took him back immediately. It would -

"TEDDY!"

Something sprang out of the fireplace, spinning, and the drawing slid down from the wall. It wrapped itself around the figure, and it was Mum again, burning here as Greyback had burned. She swiped at him, and he felt the red pain of the Guide's touch.

"Let me through!"

She laughed.

Blindly, Teddy struck out at her, knowing he couldn't hold on, but needing to get through her, needing to get to the last piece of the puzzle.

His hand made contact with the parchment Dad had once lovingly drawn on, and it collapsed into the flames beneath it, catching fire and rising to the ceiling in a torrent of ash.

The shapeless thing in front of Teddy screamed.

Teddy transformed.

He flew up on the fire-heated currents of air and snatched the last bit of the Maze's center with one talon. The fire-thing tried to push him out of the air, but he swooped below it, and transformed back into himself. He grabbed the crystal ball, and ran to Uncle Harry.

"Hold on!"

Uncle Harry grabbed onto him weakly.

Teddy put the last piece in its place.

The crystal ball's glow changed from red to blue to bright pink. The fire died, and the house disappeared around them, becoming only the abandoned lot on Screech Hill, a sunny meadow. The Guide spun wildly for a shape, finally taking on human form again.

Dad.

But only Dad. He smiled faintly and disappeared.

Teddy looked into the crystal ball. It was showing Fort Potter now, with Aunt Ginny holding James, and Granny frantically holding onto the other two.

He looked at Uncle Harry, and they both raised their wands.

" _Sulci Numine._ "

The world dissolved around them and they were on the floor of Fort Potter. James's paperweight was inert, but Teddy still held the crystal ball he'd brought out with them, which glowed a faint yellowish white.

It was whole.


	31. Shared Secrets

**Chapter 31:**

 **Shared Secrets**

Granny didn't take them to St. Mungo's. Instead, she declared James perfectly fine, then installed Uncle Harry in his own room and Teddy in Sirius's old room. It was infested with chizpurfles, but they let Teddy be for the most part, and it was good to sleep under the old photo of the Marauders. Whenever Granny left the room, he'd get up and study Dad's face, trying to force out the memory of the thing in the Maze. It wasn't doing any good, but he felt, at least, that he was trying.

He didn't feel ill or wounded, but Granny was determined to observe him for twenty-four hours to see to it that there were no lingering effects. She wanted to discard the crystal ball - she thought it was dangerous - but Teddy wanted to keep it. She tutted a bit, but nestled it in his book bag.

Uncle Harry, who'd taken the brunt of the injury when the Guide had attacked, was sicker, but for that first day, Teddy didn't have a chance to see him. James went back and forth between them like a pendulum, hovering in Teddy's doorway and speaking in mournful whispers, then scuttering down to visit Uncle Harry. From these visits, Teddy garnered that Uncle Harry hadn't spoken about what they'd seen, and James had only been able to talk about the jungle and the werewolf who battered the tree. Granny assumed this was Greyback, and Teddy didn't disabuse her of the notion.

The next morning, she came to check on him, and gave him a thorough examination before saying - with some wariness - that she thought he could get out of bed.

"Can I see Uncle Harry?"

"Of course you can. He's been asking how you are; I'm sure it will be a great relief."

"He wants to see me, though?"

Granny looked at him skeptically. " _Really,_ Teddy."

"It's my fault he got hurt, and that James got lost."

"Someday, you'll raise children of your own. At that point, you'll look back on this conversation and wonder what on earth you were thinking to ask such a thing." She pointed her wand at him and did one more quick test on his head. "Go on, then. But no rough-housing with the children until _I_ say it's all right."

"Is James completely all right?" Teddy asked, standing up.

"So far," Granny said. "Though if he continues trying to cheer up Uncle Harry by juggling Aunt Ginny's good china plates, I'll make no promises."

Teddy smiled feebly, and went downstairs. The Master bedroom was off the second floor corridor. A landscape had been moved to the wall outside the open door. He knocked.

Uncle Harry looked up. He was bundled in blankets and looked pale, but he was surrounded by papers from work and seemed frustrated to be confined to bed. "Teddy!" he said. "Did your grandmother say you could come down?"

Teddy nodded. "May I come in?"

"Yes, of course." He picked up his wand and pulled a chair over beside the bed.

Teddy went in and sat. He started to say something, but he didn't know what it ought to be, so he just bit his lip.

Uncle Harry fidgeted with his papers, then piled them up decisively and banished them to the top of the bureau. "I meant what I told you. I won't tell anyone about what we saw."

"I might tell Père Alderman," Teddy said, his eyes cast down. "Maybe he's got some sort of penance that people ought to do when they... when they're disrespectful."

"That's between you and Alderman."

"Yeah." Teddy looked up. It took a great deal of effort. He saw Uncle Harry there, and he also saw him in the Maze, fighting off the grisly demons Teddy had created, crouching by Snape's body, lurching through the garden. The light turned into prisms, and Teddy fought not to cry. He had no business trying for pity. "Are you all right? Really all right?"

"I will be, Teddy. You're sure this is what you want to do with your life?"

Teddy shrugged helplessly. "I don't know. Yes. I - Were you sure you wanted to be an Auror, after everything?"

"It had to be done."

This made as much sense as anything else, so Teddy let it be. "Are you glad?"

"Mostly. I think I'd have liked teaching, but I couldn't."

"Because you thought you needed to do something else."

"Because that classroom is full of ghosts for me."

Teddy looked up. "You always said..."

"Yes. And it's partly true. But I went there once, when they first offered me the job - I took you with me - and all I could see there..."

"Dad."

"Yes. And Snape. And Mad-Eye Moody, even though he never was there, really. Poor old Lockhart. And less pleasantly, Umbridge and Quirrell." He smiled oddly. "I'm rather glad we didn't end up in the Defense classroom in the Maze."

"Me, too. I did enough horrible things to Dad in there without spoiling the one th - " The tears came too quickly and ferociously, breaking off the word before he could stop them. "I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to. I mean, it's not about... I shouldn't..."

There was a soft "snick" sound as the door closed, and Teddy felt Uncle Harry's hand on his shoulder. Uncle Harry didn't say anything, just waited for the fit to pass, but the touch was comforting.

Finally, Teddy was able to get enough control to wipe viciously at his eyes. "He must hate me. They both must hate me."

"Of course they don't."

"They do, though! I hardly dream about them at all anymore! Except in the Maze, and I made them monsters." Teddy grimaced, and succeeded in fighting back another unmanning wave of tears. "Maybe you were right. Maybe I shouldn't see them."

Uncle Harry didn't say anything, but he looked troubled.

Teddy got up and went to the window. It looked out on the courtyard. Fort Potter was still standing, and Al was sitting cross-legged in front of it, playing a game Teddy couldn't fathom from a distance. "I just don't know why I'd see that."

"You don't?"

Teddy shook his head. "I'm the monster. I killed someone. I killed Greyback. I didn't have to. There were so many other things I could have done. Why would I make _them_ monsters?"

"First," Uncle Harry said, "what happened with Greyback... I'm not going to tell you to stop torturing yourself, because I know you won't, but that was a battle, and Greyback picked it. You didn't ask him to hunt you. You didn't plot revenge on him while he was in Azkaban. You didn't kill him in cold blood. He tried to kill Victoire, he tried to kill you, and then he provoked you. At thirteen, I nearly killed Sirius for considerably less, and I only _thought_ he was guilty. You _knew_ Greyback was."

"I could have done something else."

"Sure. And I could have had other people looking for those Horcruxes all year. I could have had Bill take the one from Gringotts, and he could have done it quietly, and no one would have known. We'd have been able to search Hogwarts over the summer. Fifty people, including a lot of people I loved, wouldn't have died, as you pointed out."

"No! I was wrong, I didn't mean that, I didn't mean to say that."

"Those are three very different things to say," Uncle Harry said. "But it doesn't matter. I just mean to say that, we all have to deal with our decisions, and later, you can always think of something that could have been done better. That's the first thing I wanted to say."

"And the rest?" Teddy went back and sat down.

Uncle Harry took a deep breath. "This is just a guess. I haven't run it by Hermione, so I don't know if it's any good, but... They _are_ in your way a lot. Remus and Tonks, I mean."

"No!"

"Hear me out. I don't think they'd want to be. But we all keep putting them there. Teddy, how many times have you heard someone say, 'At least they had Teddy'?"

Teddy shook his head. "I don't know. A lot."

"I never had to worry about whether or not people would think I was doing well enough to be Mum and Dad's son. I worried about it sometimes, but everyone else seemed to think… well, they didn't seem to expect me to justify their deaths by my existence. It's got to be a lot of pressure."

"No, it's fine."

"Teddy, I was in there with you. It's not fine." He frowned. "And then there's Greyback. He goaded you with them until you killed him."

"That wasn't _their_ fault."

Uncle Harry closed his eyes for a moment. "All right. Maybe I'm wrong. Like I said, I - "

" - haven't run it by Hermione." Teddy smiled. "I think she'd say the same thing. I read some of her psychology books last summer. Fat lot of good it did me, as I'm apparently still mad as a hatter."

"You're not mad. You've just had a rough patch." Uncle Harry pushed himself up to a sitting position. "There's something else I meant to ask you about."

"What?"

"James was telling a grand story about a boy who could become a hawk when he was inside a crystal ball. Completely illegal, should an Auror find out he could do it outside the ball. But I'm curious - do you think he could?"

"He might not have tried yet."

"He should. You should write that story for James. So he knows how that part of it turned out."

Teddy found a smile. "I'll do that."

"Good. Now, about your O.W.L.s..."

Hannah Longbottom visited that night, with a message from Hogwarts that Teddy was expected back at school by Wednesday, unless there were serious health concerns. When Aunt Ginny pointed out that she could have sent an owl about this, she said that an owl wouldn't be able to report back to several anxious people who wanted full reports on both Teddy and Uncle Harry, and knew they wouldn't get a straight one from either of them. Uncle Harry shuffled out for this visit, cleaned up and trying to look well. Teddy didn't think Hannah was entirely fooled. He sat up late with Uncle Harry and Aunt Ginny, talking about little of consequence. Aunt Ginny - once it was clear that everyone was safe - had gone to Kingsley's office to find out about the paperweight. "He said that it was in the office before he got there, and when the first... pulse, I suppose... went through and knocked things off his desk, he decided it was time to clear it off anyway. He saved it for James on a whim. Hermione had been talking about the fort." She shook her head and took a sip of her mulled mead. "The Minister of Magic and a former Auror didn't bother to see where it came from. Apparently, someone had taken a damaged crystal ball and carved it. It was still Charmed. Kingsley swears that it never did anything to make him suspicious."

Teddy didn't doubt this - the Maze had activated it - but he'd learned quite a long time ago that it was generally better to let Aunt Ginny finish fuming on her own, and perfectly understandable mistakes were forgiven. He was just glad she wasn't fuming at _him_.

Ron and Hermione and the children came the next day to visit. Rosie and Hugo had apparently been instructed in sickroom etiquette, as they spent the first half hour tiptoeing around and whispering. It was raining outside, so they went to the kitchen instead of the courtyard to hear James's story, which had now expanded to include a dragon that he'd fought single-handedly, and a Lethifold that Teddy had pulled off of him. Teddy considered embellishing it further - maybe giving Uncle Harry a swordfight with a demon - but he didn't have the heart. Instead, he went upstairs, toward where Aunt Ginny and Granny were talking in the parlor. He didn't go in. He moved aimlessly through the small library, and finally heard Uncle Harry's voice coming from the front room.

"...I can't say why. I promised."

"I don't know what to tell you then, Harry," Hermione said.

There was a heavy sigh. "It goes against everything I believe. But I can't get it out of my head."

There was a pause, then Ron said, "You know that's a problem."

"I don't mean that way. It came from nowhere. In a dream." A chair scraped back. "I sound like _my_ fifth year, though I reckon at least it's not Voldemort sending dreams this time."

Teddy turned away. The conversation was Uncle Harry's, not his, and he had no business eavesdropping. He couldn't make out the low hum of Hermione's answer.

He made his way up to the third floor, to the narrow corridor where the brothers' doors stood across from one another, continuing their endless, fading glare. He went back into Sirius's room and curled up on the bed. He slipped into a pleasant dream about the Marauders. They were all in their animal forms, including Teddy. Padfoot barked up at him, then signaled to break away. Teddy followed him into Hogsmeade, where they stopped behind Weasleys' Zonks - except that in the dream, it was Zonko's - and transformed. Sirius held up one hand said, "I solemnly swear - "

" - that I'm up to no good," Teddy finished.

Sirius laughed heartily. Teddy wanted to ask why he was here, or if Mum and Dad might talk to him again, but he couldn't seem to get the words out. Sirius wildly christened him "Wings the Avenger," then took him into Weasleys' Zonks, which became Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place. Mad Auntie was screaming in the entrance hall, and Sirius grabbed her curtains and pulled them shut.

"I talked to her more that last year than I had since I ran away. Miserable old cow."

"Why argue with a portrait?"

"Because it was better than having the arguments with myself. Also, cathartic. You should open the curtains and give her a go. She's got to be good for _something_." He headed up the stairs, and Teddy followed. They stopped in front of Regulus's door, which Sirius pounded on for quite a long time before giving up and heading into his own room. He shook his head sadly at the pinned up Muggle girls in swimsuits. "These need replacing. Swimsuits have got considerably smaller."

"You put a Permanent Sticking Charm on them."

"Oh. Right. Ah, well. They were good company." He turned. "You're not a murderer, so let it go. You're no more a murderer than I was."

"You were innocent."

"Hardly." He wrinkled his nose and slapped at something on his arm. "Harry needs to do something about these chizpurfles."

As soon as he said it, Teddy felt his skin crawling. He woke up to find a small colony of the little beasts swarming on his forearm. Aunt Ginny was calling him for dinner.

Granny woke him early the next morning and did one last diagnostic spell before he had to return to Hogwarts. She couldn't find anything wrong with him, despite an abnormally long examination. Teddy went to Uncle Harry to say goodbye (Granny took one look at him and informed him that he would return to work on Monday, and not a moment sooner), then left with Granny, who took him to Hogsmeade by Side-Along Apparition, then walked him to the Hogwarts gates. Professor Longbottom met him there, and took him back to the castle.

For the next two weeks, his friends hovered near him (Ruthless grinned and called this the "bi-annual Teddy-watch") as they studied for examinations. The plague study group was caught up, and Tinny held a Hufflepuff party in Teddy's honor to thank him for his time. Teddy was embarrassed by this, but it seemed genuine, and he didn't want to snub them. She also promised that she was working on the best Tube Crawl ever for a post-O.W.L.s Muggles and Minions day. Frankie looked so pleased to have her back at urban planning that he didn't even attempt to offer any suggestions, though Teddy noticed that he'd put several Muggle Studies books concerning chemistry in prominent view.

At first, he didn't try transforming into Wings because it didn't occur to him, but as days passed, he was afraid that it wouldn't work outside the Maze. He talked himself out of doing it in his room, as he wasn't sure how Checkmate would respond, and it never seemed a good time to sneak out anywhere else. Still, he dreamed, remembering the sensation of rising on the columns of air, the amazing vision through the hawk's phenomenal eyes. Finally, he went up to the top of the Astronomy Tower. The soft scent of mid-June rose up from the grounds below.

He expected that it would be a fight, that he'd have to re-learn without any boost from the Maze's magic, and had allowed himself quite a lot of time. But the transformation went as smoothly as it had inside the Maze - a thought that wasn't quite a thought, a surge of power going through him, and then the world was huge and filled with vibrant colors and shadows and lines. He hopped cautiously to the battlements and flew tentatively up onto one. The grounds were impossibly beautiful, and he could see _everything_ from here, from fish moving near the surface of the lake to a mouse scurrying in the grass.

He tried to step off of the tower to fly, but couldn't bring himself to do it. He went to the center, with a stone floor all around him, then ran in a long, expanding spiral, spreading his wings to feel the air, until finally he lifted off. Once airborne, there was no fear of the drop. He flew over it easily, letting himself enjoy the warm air and the soft evening mist. Finally, he circled around to Ravenclaw Tower. He'd visited the Common Room, but never Donzo's dormitory. He took a guess that it would be on the same level as his own, since they were in the same year.

He found the window and landed on the sill. Donzo was sitting cross-legged on his desk, apparently trying to put his Potions book to music, as he would read a bit, then close his eyes and mutter, swaying a little to a beat only he could hear. Franklin Driscoll was sprawled on the floor, rolling his eyes at the display. Only Geoffrey Phillips was looking toward the window. He was wearing only a vest, pants, and a pair of filthy socks. He had a bright yellow Muggle pen in one hand, and had apparently been marking his History of Magic book with it. He drew back.

"There's a buzzard in the window," he said. "I imagine it's one of _yours_." He wrinkled his nose in Donzo's direction.

"It could be mine," Franklin said. "I've been talking to the museum about a summer post."

Donzo glanced over, at first disinterested, then smiling. "Oh, I think it's mine," he said, the moved closer to the window and added, "Probably some fan frippery. I'll take it out on the balcony, in case it sings."

Teddy met him on a balcony near the top of Ravenclaw Tower, transformed, and took a bow.

Donzo clapped politely. "Took you long enough."

"Well, maybe with a competent teacher..."

"You wound me." Donzo put his hand melodramatically over his heart. "So, what's it like to fly?"

Teddy told him. Donzo was keen to have one true Marauder adventure. "I know you're not wild on anything frivolous just now," he said, "but I plan to drag you, kicking and screaming, back to normal life."

Teddy agreed to go after O.W.L.s, though neither of them had the slightest inkling what they meant to do.

O.W.L.s began. Teddy found Potions absurdly easy - after a year of brewing Wolfsbane Potion, two Sleeping Draughts and a Mnemonic Notion were child's play. Charms was also a stroll in the meadow. Herbology wasn't his best subject, but he thought he did well enough. Care of Magical Creatures and Arithmancy, he wasn't _entirely_ certain about. Defense Against the Dark Arts and Transfiguration, he'd studied hard for, and he thought he acquitted himself well. Only Divination was a challenge. He was meant to crystal gaze, and froze entirely, thinking of the mad run through the Daedalus Maze. His tester was ready to fail him - he could see that - so he asked if he might use a different crystal ball. The tester, who had apparently not had any prior intelligence about the students he'd be testing, seemed surprised that such a Divination dullard had his own crystal ball, but allowed it. Teddy pulled out the one he'd taken from the Maze. It gave him a wide view of the outer world. He didn't understand everything he saw in it, but he was finally able to read at least a few things that could be verified later.

After their last exam, Teddy and the rest of his year (excluding Geoffrey, by his own choice) were planning to meet in the Slytherin Common Room for a party, in case anyone didn't end up going on for any N.E.W.T.s, since it could be the last time they saw each other. Teddy happened to be crossing the entrance hall with Corky and Maurice when the huge door opened.

He looked up.

Uncle Harry was standing there. He looked fully recovered, but his face was troubled and his arms were crossed protectively over his chest. He nodded to Maurice and Corky then looked at Teddy and said, "Could you come with me?"

Teddy stared. His book bag seemed suddenly heavy on his shoulder.

"Don't worry," Corky said. "We'll make sure Laura and Lizzie stick around for you."

"I think that's a threat," Maurice said.

Teddy made himself look at them. "I'll be along," he said. "A lot later."

"Come by whenever," Corky said, this time not smiling.

Teddy watched them go, then looked back at Uncle Harry. "Has something happened?"

"No. Just come with me." He turned and started away from the castle. Teddy followed.

It was nearly midsummer, and the evening sky was as bright as mid-afternoon. There was a frail mist in the air, not enough to shadow anything, but enough to make the light seem solid as they walked through it. Uncle Harry led them past the Whomping Willow, past Hagrid's, to the eaves of the Forbidden Forest. There, he stopped. Teddy caught up with him there.

"I'm not sure I can do this," Uncle Harry said.

"Do what?"

Uncle Harry started to answer, then shook his head, turned, and headed into the Forest. Teddy went after him, down the narrow, twisting path that led to Spiders' Hollow. Uncle Harry's shoulders were pressed down by a weight Teddy couldn't see. Teddy ran forward, put an arm around Uncle Harry, and helped him stand straighter. Uncle Harry spared him a smile that looked like it took effort.

"Whatever it is," Teddy said, "you should stop."

"No." They reached the hollow, went down into it, and sat on the rock where they'd begun their argument in October. "I've been thinking about this since we left the Maze," he said. "I've talked to Ron and Hermione - don't worry, I didn't say what prompted it - "

"I know. You promised."

Uncle Harry nodded. "They weren't sure what to do. Ginny quite wisely told me that I need to come up with an answer myself. Neville told me essentially the same thing. No one else knows. I couldn't risk telling Andromeda."

Teddy shook his head, utterly lost.

"The person whose advice I want most," Uncle Harry went on, "is Dumbledore. Which is the crux of the problem. And also, Dumbledore may not be the best person to give advice on it, it was his greatest weakness, he'd be the first to say so. But it's the only advice I have, and I've always believed, I _still_ believe..." He sighed heavily. "But I can't stand it, Teddy. I can't stand that they're hurting you. I don't think they could stand it, either. They'd never want to hurt you."

"What are we talking about?"

Uncle Harry reached into the pocket of his robes, and drew his fist out. He held it out to Teddy, then opened it. In his palm was a round black stone, etched faintly with a symbol, cracked more prominently down the middle. It was the size of the scar on Teddy's own palm.

He looked up. "Is that - ?"

"Yes." Uncle Harry curled his fingers back around it lightly. "I took it from the forest the night we fought. I buried it in the graveyard where Cedric died. That's why I was so shocked to see him. This afternoon, I dug it back up."

Teddy held out his hand weakly, and Uncle Harry transferred the Stone to it. It didn't feel any different from any other stone, but it seemed to stick in his hand. "You don't have to - "

"Yes, I do." Uncle Harry wrapped Teddy's fingers around the Stone. "Turn it three times. And _come back to me._ Promise me that. Bring the damned thing back."

"What will you do with it?"

"That's not something I'm going to tell you. I plan to take it out of reach."

Teddy looked at his hand, the fingers folded lightly over the palm. He stood up. "I _am_ going to use it, Uncle Harry."

"I know."

On an impulse, Teddy leaned over and hugged Uncle Harry tightly. "I'll bring it back to you."

"Don't get lost." Uncle Harry stood up. "I'll be at Hagrid's."

Teddy nodded and watched him go. Once he was alone, he looked around the hollow, where so much death and destruction had happened. He didn't want to do it here.

He scrambled up the rocky slope and followed the trail up to Galdreward's clearing, where the tangible light was playing on the high rock. The damage that had happened when they'd broken the Quarantine was still there, but spring had covered the broken trees with spreading ivy and ferns. Teddy climbed to the top of the rock, the Resurrection Stone still grasped in his hand. He reached the summit and sat down. In the distance, he could see the turrets of Hogwarts, and the glimmer of the lake. He looked at his hand again, then closed his eyes.

Turned the Stone once.

Twice.

Three times.

He wasn't alone.

He opened his eyes.

They were standing in front of him, impossibly tall and beautiful, blocking the light - solid. Mum and Dad... and James and Sirius.

Teddy wanted to say so many things that he couldn't think of a single one to start with. He got shakily to his feet.

Mum came to him and put her arms around him. They were cold, but he didn't care. He held her as tightly as he could. She was smaller than he was, standing up. He still couldn't say anything.

She let go of him, and he moved to Dad, who was at least still taller. Dad folded him into an embrace. Teddy fought not to cry, and still couldn't say anything. Mum put her hands on his shoulders. He wasn't entirely sure, in that moment, that he'd be able to keep his promise to Uncle Harry.

"Well," Sirius said, "I see he's as much of a chatterbox as Moony."

Teddy managed to pull away, though he remained in the circle of his parents' embrace. Sirius was grinning, and James - James who looked every bit as young as Teddy did - actually laughed.

"Why are you here?" Teddy finally asked.

"Apparently, you needed us here," James said.

"Probably to keep that maudlin Lupin side from dominating," Sirius added.

Teddy realized that he had been crying, and wiped his eyes. "Well, you're not doing a very good job." He squeezed his parents' hands - one at a time, since he couldn't release the Stone from one of them - and moved to sit on a boulder that sat atop the formation. Mum sat next to him and put her arm around his shoulders. He held her hand.

"Oh, Teddy," she said. "I've missed you."

"Is it just because I need you to miss me, and the Stone shows me what I need?"

"No," Dad said. "Believe me, no."

"Why haven't you talked to me? Why haven't there been dreams?" Teddy looked at them desperately, and had a moment's sheer terror that they would say, _What dreams?_

But Dad sat on his other side and said, "You haven't been letting us in."

"Why wouldn't I? I need you!"

"No, you don't," Mum said, putting her fingers on his chin and turning his face to her. "Not like you did when you were small."

"I do, though. I _do_."

"I'm so sorry," Mum said. "Teddy, I only wanted to give you both of your parents instead of just one, and I ended up seeing to it that you had neither of us, and - "

Teddy squeezed her hand. "Mum, I'd have done the same."

"I tried to so hard to stay. I grabbed at everything. The house, Mum... and you. You most of all, and I'm sorry. I think that may be why you see things sometimes."

Teddy tried to manufacture a manly calm, and failed miserably. "In that case, thank you."

"It just happened so fast."

"I know. I've seen it. And Greyback kindly shared his own version of events with me."

"I should have killed him when I was in his camp," Dad said.

"Can we avoid the run of 'should haves'?" James asked, dropping down to sit cross-legged on the ground. "Teddy's never needed any of us to play Seeker-in-the-Stands. He does it perfectly well on his own."

"So what _does_ he need?" Sirius asked.

Teddy looked from one to another of them. He had no answer. He'd called them here, from wherever they were, and he couldn't think of a thing to talk about or a need he could voice.

"It's not fair!" he said, and stood up. "It's just _not_. Uncle Harry says I should accept it, but how? How can I? How can I say that this is all right? _This is not all right_. It's not. How can I ever make this all right?"

They looked at one another, then at him, but said nothing.

Of course. Nothing they could do about it. It was a stupid, childish, foolish thing to say. _Not fair._ He sat down again, miserably, between his parents. "I'm sorry. I know. Life's not fair."

"Don't you dare," Dad said. Teddy looked up. Dad shook his head. "Teddy, don't do that. I wasted half my life on that cynical nonsense. Life can be kind. Believe that."

"But - "

"But things happen that aren't fair," Mum said, with an understanding nod. "So do your best to stop them from happening. _Make_ it fair. Or as fair as you can. Don't give up on it just because you can't fix this."

There was silence, then James said, "Tell Harry I said something that wise and true. Really, I ought to have thought of it."

"But you did say something that wise," Teddy told him. "I understand why you wrote all of that about Identity in the Animagus books. About knowing who you are. That was wise and true."

"Speaking of the famed Animagus books," Sirius said, "you've used them well."

Teddy sniffed. He felt weak and shaky, but the rage that had come up seemed to have receded. "I'm going to find a way to hide them, and put some puzzles into the Map so James - my James - can find them later. I don't think he'd appreciate it if I just told him where to look."

Dad laughed fondly. Teddy found himself not asking for things, but telling them about his life, even though they seemed to know much of it. He tried to tell James about flying as a bird, but didn't seem to be getting things across very well. He talked about Ruthless, and Victoire. He talked about his classes, and about his friends and his small year. He carefully mentioned Ellsworth, to see how Mum would react, but she didn't. In turn, they told him small things as well. There was nothing of any worth or great import to the world. Teddy was still flailing for what he ought to ask them, or what he needed from them so desperately. It all seemed a waste to bring them back from the dead for small talk.

But he needed it, and he needed Mum and Dad's arms over his shoulders, and Sirius's wry grin, and James's laugh, even if he could only have them for a little while.

After some amount of miraculous time, he took the Map out of his book bag, to show them the changes he'd made. The unbreakable jars he'd put in and kept forgetting to return made a racket as he dug, so he took them out and set them on the rock. The Map finally came out, Dad's wand trailing after it.

Dad held out his hand. "May I?"

"Your wand?"

"The Map's wand," Dad said, and took it. He read the inscription Teddy had carved into it: "'Unforgotten.' Thank you, Teddy."

"I mean it. No one is going to forget you."

Dad smiled sadly, then flicked the wand at a stray leaf. It Levitated. "I miss this."

Teddy watched this, something trying to take root in his mind. He moved his hand, and it bumped the little specimen jars.

He blinked.

"Can you all do magic?" he asked. "I have two wands you can use."

"I doubt I could Conjure a Patronus," Mum said, "but I think I could do something simple."

Teddy smiled. "I have an idea..."


	32. Gifts

**Chapter 32:**

 **Gifts**

Teddy was afraid that they might refuse him, but they were all actually rather enthusiastic about the notion. When they'd finished, he sat with them again and listened to them talk, with each other as much as with him. Mum, who had appeared naturally, with her light brown, wavy hair, began to morph its color. "I doubt I could do anything fancy," she said. "I do miss this. Why did you stop doing this?"

"He's a boy," Sirius said. "We're not really prone to primping in front of mirrors." James and Dad looked at him incredulously, and he grinned.

Teddy turned his hair for her, letting it cycle as he'd often done while trying to commune with them. It seemed to make her happy, but the sun was beginning to go down, and the Forest was growing cold.

Dad put a hand on his arm. "Teddy... you have a promise to keep."

Teddy looked at them helplessly. "I know." He swallowed. "Could one of you say that being here hurts you desperately or something?"

"What?" James asked.

"You know... being torn out paradise or whatever."

Mum gave him an odd look. "Why?"

"So he doesn't feel like he's killing us," Dad said.

Teddy nodded.

Mum's face grew softer. "Oh." She sighed. "Teddy, I'm not going to lie to you. It doesn't hurt us at all. But if we stay much longer, it'll hurt _you_."

"I don't care."

"Well, I do," Dad said. "Teddy, you need to go back now."

"I thought I was sending _you_ back."

"This is more like meeting halfway," James said. "Being halfway anywhere is no good." He stood up and held out his hand for Teddy to shake. Teddy did so. James smiled and said, "I'm glad to know you, Wings."

"You too, Prongs."

Sirius came to him. "Prongs and I are going to step aside and let you be as maudlin as you want for a minute. As the one of us without any of his own children, I'm just glad _someone_ remembers me."

"Do you mind the stories James and I write?" Teddy asked.

Sirius laughed heartily and shook his head. He and James slipped into the shadows until they were indistinguishable from them, but Teddy knew they were there nonetheless.

He turned to his parents. "I'm not sure I can do this."

"You can," Dad said.

Mum nodded. "We're never more than a thought away. Maybe less, now."

"It's not the same."

"No, it's not. But it's more than any of us had a right to expect." She hugged him, and kissed his forehead gently. "Oh, Teddy. How I wish..." She blinked her wish away. "Morph a bit now and then, will you? For your mum?"

Teddy nodded, and made his hair turn purple and stand on end. He looked at Dad. "What would you like me to do for you?"

"Live your life," Dad said, his voice thick. "And _do_ this thing you're so good at, and that you have a passion to do. Do what you were born for, and do it well, and don't let _anyone_ talk you out of it."

"Or pass legislation against it," Mum added. "In case you're not getting the subtext."

"You're not disappointed that I'm not going to be Professor Lupin?" Teddy asked.

Dad shook his head. "Actually, that was _my_ job. However short-term. And I think I did it reasonably well. You don't need to finish it up for me." He touched Teddy's face, then said, "You have to do this, Teddy."

"I know." Teddy wrapped his arms around both of them, kissed them each on the cheek then stepped back, said, "I love you both," and let go of the Resurrection Stone.

The clearing was empty again.

It was dusk, and the mist had grown into a dismal light rain. Teddy lit his wand and searched the ground until he found where the Stone had landed. He looked at it for a long time, then put it in his pocket. Carefully, he loaded the sealed jars into his book bag and made his way down the path, into the darkness of the summer night, toward the light in Hagrid's cabin.

Hagrid had put out dinner, so there was no question of talking about what had just happened. Teddy and Uncle Harry did little of the talking, but the familiar rituals of trying to avoid eating Hagrid's cooking and listening to the peccadilloes of Hogsmeade society began to reconnect Teddy with life away from the Stone, and by the time he walked with Uncle Harry to the gate, all of it seemed to have happened to someone else - yet it still gave him a kind of calm peace that he didn't recognize at first, because he'd never felt it.

They stopped at the edge of school grounds, and Uncle Harry held out his hand.

Teddy reached into his pocket and took out the Resurrection Stone. He gave it to Uncle Harry.

"You don't have to tell me about it," Uncle Harry said.

"I will, though," Teddy said. "Back in London, I will."

Uncle Harry looked longingly at the Stone, then put it in his own pocket. "In London, then. Did you find what you needed?"

"As much of it as I could," Teddy said.

Uncle Harry nodded, and disappeared into the night.

Teddy went back to the castle, put his book bag and its precious contents away, and went down to Slytherin, where he found that the Ravenclaws had even managed to drag Geoffrey down. He was sitting sullenly in the corner, but he was there, and this seemed right to Teddy - no missing pieces. The party went on well past curfew, Corky and Honoria cheerfully docking points from all of the other Houses for it, and Teddy allowed himself to celebrate with them. It seemed that no one was planning to drop out with only O.W.L.s, but it was still good to be together. Teddy couldn't think of a time that all fifteen of them had been together since Sorting. Lizzie and Laura approached him and magnanimously forgave him whatever sins they'd imagined he committed last year. ("Laura forgave me," Lizzie said, "so we decided we ought to forgive you.") He thanked them for this. He let Maurice think it was sarcastic, but it was quite sincere - whatever they imagined he'd done to them, he was glad to be back in their good graces. He danced with Janey for a long time, and when the Heads of House decided to stop pretending not to know about the party, walked back upstairs with the Ravenclaws, splitting only when they reached the seventh floor. The boggart in Dean's mural focused on Franklin, and became a sinister-looking Muggle car. Teddy bade them good night.

He and Donzo snuck out two days later, as hawk and raccoon, and had a look around the empty Hogwarts Express before the next morning's departure. Donzo had brought along several Wheezes, and they spread them gleefully among the compartments. Teddy flew up and put a firework in the smokestack, which started the journey back with quite a bang. The sparkling female figure danced over the train most of the way back to London. Victoire opined that they ought to have boy fireworks dancers next year. Ruthless concurred.

Bill and Fleur held a coming home party, where Marie regaled everyone with stories of the year. Victoire and Story declared a summer truce. Teddy presented James (and Uncle Harry) with the improbable story of the boy who could become a bird even outside the crystal ball, though he was careful to stress that if the secret got out, he wouldn't be able to do it anymore.

Hermione asked Teddy which week he'd like to have the Trace lifted for. He thought there was no time like the present, so, with great aplomb, she lifted it. He began his travels the next day, moving up and down the Floo network as fast as he could. His first stop was Badger Hill; he needed Maddie to come up with plausible excuses for everything else. She was happy to give him one, and he visited a dozen or more people over the next few days, including Uncle Harry. He felt a bit bad using one of the excuses after they had a long talk about what had happened in the Forbidden Forest, but it was only temporary. At the end of the week, he put everything he had collected into a strong wooden box, and Flooed to Diagon Alley.

He stopped at Gringotts first and took out the full amount of gold Bill had given him access to from the Brimmann wreck, then went down a side street he didn't know well, where small, neat flats looked out on the business district. He checked the numbers against one he had written down, and finally stopped at a smartly painted door and rang the bell. There was a low thunder of footsteps on the stairs, then the door opened. Dean Thomas looked at Teddy in surprise.

"Hi," Teddy said. "Could we talk?"

The last day of July in London was a dream that year - comfortable heat, low humidity. There had been a rainstorm last night, but it had been part of the dream, with families gathering inside to watch the lightning and the last raindrops clinging only long enough to make the morning glitter brilliantly. The day was soft and welcoming, and the play parks and pavements were full. People seemed to have got the edge of a low-level Cheering Charm. Elderly ladies in porkpie hats chatted amiably with one another on park benches, businesspeople in expensive suits strolled along the paths, ignoring the incessant ringing of their telephones. Buskers on the street, dressed in the bright flowing colors that were gaining popularity that summer, played guitars and xylophones and tambourines. There were friendly wagers on the Commonwealth Games currently going on up in Glasgow. The soft, indolent scent of flowers, leaves, and fresh-cut grass clung to people even as they moved from the green world and went into the man-made caverns cut beneath the city.

The neighborhood around Grimmauld Place was caught up in one of its periodic fits of creative energy. A preservation society had taken to painting the iron fence around the square - a project which the usually reclusive Potters and their children had joined in with gusto over the previous weekend; the pretty little girl had been most enthusiastic about the project, though the teenage boy with garish blue hair had held a close second - and several ambitious amateur artists had taken to the pavement with colored chalk, making a clumsily drawn wonderland that snaked among the decrepit houses. In front of Number Twelve, the Potter children, under the direction of the older of the young boys (though he left most of the execution to the younger one), had drawn a fantasy of a jungle, with luridly large flowers and cheerfully smiling vines. A monkey with big, uneven eyes was perched on the last square of pavement before Number Eleven, though the children in Number Thirteen swore it had been near _their_ house earlier that morning. The adults, sitting together on the steps of Number Eleven, smiled and rolled their eyes at the extravagant imaginations of their offspring.

Inside Number Twelve, the Potters didn't seem in the least reclusive. In fact, had their neighbors been paying attention - a possibility that had been carefully guarded against with any number of Charms - they would have seen at least a dozen families arriving, knocking on the door, and being greeted with warm words and gesture by one or another member of the family. The Potter children weren't outside, because they were in Fort Potter, holding court with all of their cousins (along with the Story and Laurel Shacklebolt and a swaddled baby girl named Charity Jordan, who was being passed among the older Weasley sisters), and their guest of honor, Harry Potter himself. By evening, he would have to be properly turned out for a Ministry to-do on the occasion of his thirty-fourth birthday, but, from the study window, Teddy thought he looked considerably happier in his current circumstance.

"You don't need to pay me," Dean Thomas said behind him.

"Of course I'm paying you." Teddy turned. "We agreed on a price."

"But - "

"Besides, I already transferred it to your Gringotts account."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Well, if you insist. I want to reiterate what I said last week - if you'd like a summer post..."

Teddy laughed. "I'd never be able to admit it to anyone. Anyway, I'm going on tour with Donzo next week."

"Oh - well, have a good time. I, er... I'm going back to the party. I'll send Harry back when the somber ceremony down there is over."

"Thanks."

Dean nodded to him, and disappeared into the corridor.

Teddy looked at the two draped shapes that now stood in front of Uncle Harry's desk. Each was four feet high and three feet across. Dean had worked quickly and well. He said that having a Metamorphmagus model made all of it a good deal easier.

His nerves were twisted around one another in charged knots. All month, he'd been buoyed along by the sheer exuberance of the idea, and the ability to implement it. Sitting in Dean's studio - bringing along Donzo half the month and Ruthless the other half - he hadn't thought twice. He'd even crowed about his O.W.L. scores with no self-consciousness when they'd arrived, and he'd seen nothing below an E.

But now, his imagination was Conjuring images of Uncle Harry's face in the Forest, that haunted look in his eyes, and he wondered if this was a gift or a curse, a misuse of the unimaginable privilege he'd shared.

It was far too late to turn back.

The door opened.

Uncle Harry came in, taking off his headdress and putting it over a lamp. "Dean said you wanted to see me."

"I have a present for you."

"I think we're doing that later," Uncle Harry said.

"Well, this... you'll need the explanation Maddie cooked up for it, which I can't very well tell you in front of everyone."

Uncle Harry's eyes moved to the shrouded shapes. "Teddy... are those portraits?"

"Yeah." Teddy bit his lip. "One's mine, but you need to see both of them."

"Teddy, did you...?"

Teddy nodded. "Remember when I told you I needed some memories of Dad and Sirius for something Maddie wanted me to do in Identity? That was a lie in a good cause." Teddy took a deep breath. "Well... do you want yours? Do you want to see?"

Uncle Harry raised his wand slowly, and Teddy saw that his hand was shaking and thought, _I shouldn't have, he won't want it, not after all the talk about accepting..._

The drop cloths rose into the air and flew across the room, landing in a pile on the sofa.

"Harry!" Sirius said from the canvas on the left. He moved forward from his motorbike. He was wearing a vintage leather jacket of Donzo's, and worn-out blue jeans. He grinned. "This can't be Number Twelve. Too happy. James, have a look!"

Uncle Harry sat down hard at his desk as James - dressed in casual work robes - came out from behind the motorbike and looked out with a smile. "It _is_ happy. Must be driving your mum mad."

Uncle Harry put his hand over his face.

Teddy looked down. "I'm sorry. I didn't think - "

A hand reached out and grabbed his arm. "Thank you, Teddy," he said thickly. "I... thank you."

"You're not angry?"

Uncle Harry looked at him. "Of course I'm not angry! Teddy, this... It'll take getting used to, but I've _missed_ them."

"I should hope so," Dad said from the other canvas - Teddy's canvas - where he'd been painted in the kitchen of Number Twelve with Mum, dancing while a kettle of Wolfsbane Potion brewed endlessly behind them. Mum was happy, if clumsy, in the dance.

"Wotcher, Harry!" she said.

Uncle Harry covered his mouth, and Teddy thought there were tears in his eyes.

"I know it's not all of them," Teddy said. "But it's all I could get, the best we could do." Uncle Harry didn't say anything, so he went on. "I've been going to Dean's studio. I posed all their faces. Even Mum's. Donzo and Ruthless helped too, with the bodies, for when he had to work on both at once."

"Teddy, they're... amazing. But how can we explain them?"

"That's where I'm glad you told Maddie about the Stone. She made up a story about how she went through the brain tank after our little adventure, trying to make some sense of things, and she found just enough memories from them to give me for the portrait. I think Sirius was meant to have had them taken from Azkaban, and Mum had to do them when she was training, and Dad had to report on werewolves or something, and Prongs... I don't remember why she said he did, but we can just say I forgot. I got a lot of other people to give memories for the background. They'll all think that's why they're so good." He swallowed hard. "Your mum didn't come, so I couldn't get her memories, I'm sorry about that, and - "

Uncle Harry just shook his head again. "I don't even know what to say, Teddy. This is incredible."

Mum cleared her throat. "Teddy, oughtn't you get to the other part?"

"Oh, right," Teddy said. "I actually asked Sirius and Dad if they'd mind, and they don't, so..."

"Don't mind what?" Uncle Harry asked.

Teddy looked at the portraits. "Who wants to go first?"

Sirius sighed extravagantly. "I can't believe you put us in the kitchen," he said, then braced himself comically and walked out of the frame of his portrait. A second later, he entered the portrait of Mum and Dad. Here, he was older and gaunter, but Teddy had chosen a memory from Dad's ring that was one of the happy times during Sirius's last year, after Mum and Dad had got together, when things were beginning to look up for Sirius himself. He bounded in with great energy, and took a bow.

"He's in both portraits," Teddy explained. "So's Dad."

"Speaking of which," Dad said, and crossed into the portrait with the motorbike. He lost several years, and his hair became less gray. He was wearing patched up robes that Teddy had found in a second-hand shop in Diagon Alley. He took his place, leaning against the wall to watch James working on the bike.

"They can cross back and forth," Teddy said. "So you can ask Sirius to come to me, and I can ask Dad to go to you. Even if one of us gets stuck behind another Quarantine."

Uncle Harry smiled, not taking his eyes from the paintings. "Phineas will be relieved."

"Are you joking?" Sirius asked, spinning Mum around the kitchen. "Grayfur will be devastated. I plan to rub it in his face as often as possible."

Uncle Harry's mouth twitched, then he laughed. Teddy pulled a chair over to sit beside him, and they watched the portraits together, talking with them until they began to seem as usual as Grayfur, the Fat Lady, or Mad Auntie. After a long time, they went downstairs, taking the portraits along to show people. Uncle Harry shared the fabricated story of their origin. Everyone seemed to understand that it was fabricated, but no one asked why. They just praised both the portraits and Dean extravagantly, and Dean bemoaned the fact that Teddy refused a career as a painter's model, which caused a good deal of good-natured ribbing about who would be doing his hair and make-up for the rest of the summer.

"Who needs hair and make-up people?" Teddy asked, and morphed himself into the famous statue of David, to the great amusement of the others.

Uncle Harry formally introduced each portrait to his children, bringing much merriment to the occupants, who bowed and mimed hugs and kisses. Lily gave each of them a kiss, then complained about the scratchy canvas.

All afternoon, Teddy caught Uncle Harry's eye going to the portrait of his father and Sirius (Dad was in and out of it all night, apparently catching up on portrait gossip). Each time seemed to bring a smile now. It was all right.

Two days later, Uncle Harry took him to Heathrow, to the brand new Terminal Eight and a Third, where Donzo, the Weird Sisters, most of Teddy's friends, an entire concert crew, and all of the equipment were standing near a large circular platform around a device that looked like a coat tree with far too many arms. It was Kirley Duke's design, and had apparently been years in the making, as the giant Portkeys needed to be built at Keyports all around the world. This one would go to Logan Airport - Terminal X - in Boston, in America, where the band would pick up its Charmed bus for the remainder of the tour. Everyone was too busy trying to fit the instruments into their secure spots to take much notice of Teddy and Uncle Harry.

"Next summer, you won't need anyone to get you around," Uncle Harry said.

"I might still want someone to say goodbye to."

"True." Uncle Harry looked up at him and sighed. "I always knew you'd be taller than I am. I didn't realize how _much_ taller. When, exactly, do you plan to finish this growth spurt?"

"I don't know. Sometime before I use the whole Brimmann treasure replacing my clothes, I hope."

Uncle Harry laughed. "When you get back, we're going to take a trip to your vault. I think there are few things you ought to start paying attention to now."

Teddy nodded. Granny had actually given him a Gringotts receipt for his holdings that he was certain was in error by a large margin, or perhaps he'd read it wrong. "I'll be back in three weeks," he said. "That'll leave us a week before school."

"I'll arrange to take a couple of days off. Your grandmother will want to come as well." Uncle Harry held out his hand. "Well, I suppose you're off to a grand adventure."

"God, I hope not," Teddy said, and laughed. Instead of shaking Uncle Harry's hand, he hugged him, and was glad to get a hug in return.

"I was afraid you wouldn't want public hugs anymore," Uncle Harry muttered.

"Right. I just hate them."

Uncle Harry grinned and reached up to muss his hair, as he'd done to say goodbye for as long as Teddy could remember.

"Hey, Lupin!" Donzo called. "We're all about ready! Any time you are. As long as it's before they gear up the Portkey charm."

"Right." Teddy smiled at Uncle Harry, then pulled his trunk onto the platform. He took a place between Donzo and Frankie. The whole structure began to hum.

Teddy looked across his friends' heads toward Uncle Harry, who was still standing back with the other parents. He let go long enough to wave.

Uncle Harry waved back, then the Portkey circled twice, and flung Teddy out into the world.

 **THE END**


End file.
